Prior research has indicated that university students are increasingly concerned about the credentials’ inflation, and are aware that one needs to ‘add value’ to a degreed education (Tomlinson 2008). This tendency applies especially to privileged, high achieving students from a high-status university. Prior research, mainly drawing on Bourdieu’s theoretical conceptions, has recognised class-based assumptions and strategies in students’ attempts to (re)produce advantages over other university graduates in the labour market (Bathmaker, Ingram and Waller 2013; Burke et al. 2020). We argue that gender as well as social background effect on how graduates can elaborate on their strategic acquiring and mobilizing of additional resources for the purposes of career success. We draw on feminist re-engagements with Bourdieusian theory (e.g., Skeggs 1997; McNay 1999; McLead 2005) and contemporary debates over gender and capitals in the field of management (e.g., Ross‐Smith & Huppatz 2010). Based on 17 graduate interviews from Finnish business schools, we analyse how graduates’ give meaning to their participation, for example, in extracurricular activities, employer sponsored networking events and field trips, as well as study abroad experiences, and how they construct social and gendered distinctions through the ‘added value’ narratives. We use a narrative ’small story’ approach (Bamberg & Georgakopoulou, 2008; DeFina & Georgakopoulou 2008) to interpret how the personal and social, agency and structure and the micro and macro levels of social actions and relationships evolve and are negotiated through time and space. The results provide a new perspective on how the social inequalities are (re)produces in/through higher education. This study is part of the larger project: Higher education graduates’ employability and social positioning in the labour market, funded by the Academy of Finland (2018–2022).

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