Q Quality Practices for Career Readiness for Pre-service Teachers Carolyn Alchin Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Synonyms Career choice; Career development; Career pre- paredness; Career self-efficacy; Employability Introduction Quality pre-service teachers are career ready and have excellent employability skills. Designing quality structures in teacher education to achieve this is a challenge for education specialists, poli- ticians, and economists considering global com- petition in an exponentially changing world (Schleicher 2014). Teacher career readiness pro- grams have consistently been under scrutiny, some research critiquing programs (Zeichner 2014) and others critiquing teacher preparation programs for teachers being ill-prepared for man- aging structural and cultural barriers (Gatti and Catalano 2015) and teacher resilience (Mansfield et al. 2016). Conversely, excellent practice in pre- service teacher programs that prepare pre-service teachers for their careers can also be noted internationally (Allen et al. 2013; Bentley-Wil- liams et al. 2017; Evagorou et al. 2015). This entry identifies principles and examples of best practice in preparing teachers to be career ready, connecting theory and practice in career develop- ment theory for a pre-service teacher context. Universities are compared and ranked on their ability to prepare graduates for employment, so assuring the quality of graduate preparation for employment and careers has implications for quality assurance of courses. In addition, early career teacher attrition rates mean that career read- iness is of greater concern and can reflect on institutional quality. What Is Career Readiness? Career readiness across professions can be defined in a range of ways. The definition of career readiness developed by the American National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) is: “Career readiness is the attainment and demonstration of requisite competencies that broadly prepares college graduates for a success- ful transition into the workplace” (NACE 2013). Some of these competencies align directly with research relating to pre-service teaching. Compe- tencies most relevant include career self-manage- ment, professionalism and work ethic, leadership, teamwork, and global/intercultural fluency. When considering pre-service teachers specif- ically as a profession, many of the critiques focus on pain points around pre-service teachers’ capac- ity to teach content-specific material (Evagorou et © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 M. A. Peters (ed.), Encyclopedia of Teacher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1179-6_212-1