The discourse on Work-integrated Learning (WIL) has long promoted a binary reading of graduate employability. This reading is problematic because in key ways it polarises 'theory' and 'practice' for students, and thereby create the very theory- practice gap that WIL seeks to bridge. To explore this problem, I conduct a genealogical discourse analysis of how the idea of graduate employability operates in 87 present and past official documents about the Cooperative Education (Co-op) WIL model. The bulk of the empirical material consists of student-oriented brochures that the University of Cincinnati (USA), the University of Waterloo (Canada) and University West (Sweden) have used between 1928 and 2018 to promote Co-op to prospective and enrolled Co-op students. The results show that two accounts of this idea are often used in both present and past documents. These are the practice acclaiming account and the theory and practice account. The former account is merely creating the theory-practice gap while the latter is in one way creating this gap and in another way bridging it. I argue that a non-binary reading of graduate employability could be useful for students because it could emphasise that employability is about knowing how theories (ideas and principles etc.) and practice co-exist in professional work. This message does not disconnect theory from practice but could instead encourage students to learn how they co-exist in this work, an insight which could make them experts at 'doing' theories at work. I finally argue that one way of providing scope for a non-binary reading of graduate employability is to create a non-dualistic WIL desig s how theories and practice co-exist in professional work.