An empirical study of self-perceived employability: Improving the prospects for student employment success in an uncertain environment

Abstract

Employability of graduates has taken more prominence in recent years due to the bleak economic situation, the impact of student debt, and an increasingly competitive global labor market. Given the substantial individual and public investment made in higher education, it is particularly important that graduates are employable upon graduation. The focus of this study is students’ self-awareness through a measure of their expectations of gaining employment. Through the use of regression analysis, we examine the relationship between students’ expectations of finding employment upon graduation and a series of related variables and identify those factors that serve as boosters to self-perceived employability. Findings point out to the increasingly important role university can play in developing and enhancing graduates’ employability.

Keywords

employment prospects personal capital variables self-confidence self-managing behavior self-perceived employability

Employability and understanding of the concept of graduate employability

Historically, universities have conceived themselves to be repositories of culture and creativity and as cultivators of knowledge, traits, and skills that students need for personal success. Universities have also seen their role as promoters of the values, ideals, and civic virtues that contribute to the progress of the society (Condliffe Lagemann and Lewis, 2012). Underlying much of the modern history of higher education, though, is the implicit idea that universities also engender economic growth through the knowledge, skills, and understanding that students develop at university as well as through the direct contributions by the university. More recently, factors such as the rapid rise of information technologies, globalization, demographics, calls for direct economic outcomes, increased cost of education, and decreases in government funding have come to further influence the behavior and strategies of universities (Samarasekera, 2012). This has resulted in universities making more explicit the economic purpose and scope of higher education.

Given this shifting landscape in which more students are being educated and the knowledge economy demands more from all levels of the workforce, concern about getting a job has heightened the employability element of a university education. Universities are becoming increasingly aware of the need of placing greater emphasis on the employability of their graduates (Lees, 2002) and are responding by embedding employability into the curriculum and providing effective student support for career development and employability (QAA, 2009). Some of the literature (Knight and Yorke, 2003; Yorke and Knight 2006; QAA, 2009) suggest that a strategic implementation of employability in higher education requires that it becomes a prominent, organic part of the academic curriculum concurrently with appropriate and effective assessment. An employability-oriented curriculum can be developed by embedding employability throughout the whole curriculum, in the core courses, or by using employability-related modules. The curriculum should help students build not only an understanding of the subject matter and develop various skills but also help them with personal aspects of development, such as self-efficacy and metacognition. Strategies that develop these metacognitive achievements and guide students in “learning how to learn” become particularly important in enhancing graduate employability (Knight and Yorke, 2003; Moon, 2004). However, developing employability skills is not enough. Students should be able to articulate their employability skills gained through courses and extracurricular activities to prospective employers (Knight and Yorke, 2003). Whether for the workplace or for anywhere else, people who possess skills, knowledge, and attitudes that they can apply in a variety of situations and who have the ability and willingness to continually adapt in a changing environment are needed (QAA, 2009: 8). Preparing graduates with the necessary set of skills and attributes that can contribute successfully is a particularly high priority for public higher education which depends to a large part on taxpayer contributions.

As a direct result of the recent downturn in the economy the world over, it is perhaps not surprising that there is currently interest in exploring employability and its associated factors given that, with fewer jobs and more graduates applying for them, we in higher education have been asked by various stakeholders to take a closer look at employability, hence the recent proliferation of research into our understanding of the concept of graduate employability (De Vos et al., 2011; De Vos and Soens, 2008; Fugate et al., 2004; Fugate and Kinicki, 2008; Hinchliffe and Jolly, 2011; Holmes, 2001; Knight and Yorke, 2002, 2003; McQuaid and Lindsay, 2005; Pool and Sewell, 2007; Rothwell et al., 2008, 2009) and the strategies that can be used by the institutions of higher education to enhance it (Knight, 2006; Knight and Yorke, 2002, 2003).

A widely accepted definition by Hillage and Pollard (1998) defines employability as the ability of the individual to gain initial employment, maintain employment, move between roles within the same organization, obtain new employment if required, and, ideally, obtain suitable and fulfilling jobs (p. 2). They maintain that individual employability is a combination of four fundamental elements: assets (knowledge, skills, and attitudes), deployment (abilities such as career management skills, job search skills, and adaptability), presentation (the ability to present to the market employability assets in an accessible way), and finally, personal circumstances and external labor market. According to the current benchmark for understanding the concept of employability (Knight and Yorke, 2002), employability is influenced by four broad and interrelated components: namely, understanding, skills, efficacy beliefs (student’s self-theories and personal qualities), and metacognition (self-awareness regarding student’s learning, and the capacity to reflect on, in, and for action). However, Yorke (2006) and Knight (2006) caution that today’s graduates need not only to have a wide range of achievements, attitudes, and dispositions such as imagination, creativity, adaptability, self-management, and willingness to learn but also that graduates should be prepared to meet these expectations (Knight, 2006). Graduates need all these skills and abilities and self-confidence, self-awareness, motivation, and emotional intelligence not “just” for the workplace but also for “life.” What graduates do, whether in the workplace or anywhere else, how successful they are is also influenced by additional factors, such as ethnicity, socio-economic background, the reputation of the institution attended, and the subject studied. De Vos and Soens (2008) suggest that individuals who reflect more actively about their goals and develop stronger insights in what they want to attain report a higher level of career success. Building upon these ideas of developing self-efficacy, self-confidence, and self-esteem is the notion of graduate identity (Holmes, 2001). Rather than looking at employability per se, Holmes suggests that

the concept of graduate employability should be understood as the extent to which an individual who has graduated is successful in gaining affirmation of their identity as a graduate in relation to the social settings for which this is deemed relevant. (p. 115)

Graduate identity is, thus, about the development of an individual rather the job the individual gets. Hinchliffe and Jolly (2011) develop further the concept of “graduate identity” by defining it based on four elements: value, intellect, social engagement, and performance. For them, graduate identity can be seen as the social capital acquired over time, with skills and knowledge as part of this identity that serves them in the long run.

As a multidimensional psycho-social construct with subjective and objective elements, employability has been studied from an individual perspective with focus on individual dispositions, attitudes, and behaviors (Fugate, Kinicki and Ashforth, 2004: Fugate and Kinicki 2008; Rothwell et al., 2008; Van der Heijden et al., 2009), as well as an organizational perspective (De Vos et al., 2011; Nauta et al., 2009) by combining individual attitudes, attributes, and personal circumstances, with external circumstances (McQuaid and Lindsay, 2005). The common thread among employability discussed above is that if students become more self-aware, more informed, and motivated, they will make better decisions after they graduate, whether those are decisions about their career or decisions about anything else which they will face in life. Focusing on self-efficacy, raising student self-awareness, and strengthening self-confidence are, therefore, more important than individual skills and competences (Lees, 2002).

Importance of self-perceived employability and its determinants

The extent to which students believe that they can “make a difference” is of critical importance. Self-efficacy and self-perception impact employability both directly and indirectly through skills, understanding, and metacognition. So, if we are to better understand employability, then a better understanding of these self-concepts is needed. Self-efficacy and self-perception are two closely related concepts (Bandura, 1994) and have been treated either as interchangeable constructs (Daniels et al., 1998; Washington, 1999) or as significant predictors of each other (Berntson et al., 2008; Knight and Yorke, 2002). Perceived self-efficacy is concerned with people’s beliefs in their capabilities to exercise control over their own functioning and over events that affect their lives (Bandura, 1994). Self-perception of employability refers to students’ perceptions and beliefs about their possibilities to succeed in obtaining full-time employment upon graduation (Berntson et al., 2006; Rothwell and Arnold, 2007). Self-perception of employability precedes self-efficacy, and a strengthening of individual perceptions of employability has beneficial effects on efficacy beliefs (Berntson et al., 2008). There is a crucial role played by the human desire to develop and maintain favorable views of the self in social interactions (Crosnoe et al., 2007). Individuals process and make decisions closely based on their level of self-perception as opposed to what is objectively true of their actual abilities (Bandura, 1997; Pool and Qualter, 2013). For this reason, how individuals feel and behave can often be better predicted by the beliefs they hold about their capabilities than by what they are actually capable of accomplishing.

These self-perceptions help determine what individuals do with the knowledge and skills they have, though they cannot be a substitute for necessary skills and knowledge (Pajares, 2002). Self-perception is a very valuable attribute that confers a consumption value, a signaling value, and a motivation value to the individual throughout their life experiences (Benabou and Tirole, 2002). The consumption value is created based on the fact that thinking of oneself favorably makes a person happier and self-image becomes a variable in the utility function. By believing oneself to be of high ability, it makes it easier to convince others (even if inaccurately) that one does have such qualities (the signaling value). Most importantly though, self-confidence in one’s abilities improves an individual’s long run motivation to undertake projects, to adjust, and persevere in the pursuit of one’s goals in spite of various setbacks (Benabou and Tirole, 2002). Self-perceptions, in general, impact not only individual behavior but also individual’s feelings, health, emotions, and happiness throughout life (Berntson et al., 2006;). Although being employable is important for everyone, self-perceptions of employability become particularly important for new graduates entering the fast changing labor market (Berntson et al., 2006). Feeling employable hypothetically provides the individual with feelings of security and independence, motivations, and behaviors that can lead to effective negotiations, better job performance, resilience to adversity, more successful careers, and better health and life satisfaction (Berntson et al., 2006; De Vos and Soens, 2008; Pool and Qualter, 2013).

To enhance the understanding of employability from an individual perspective, a better understanding of its determinants is needed. Research (Berntson et al., 2006; Rothwell, Herbert and Rothwell, 2008) has suggested that a variety of individual and external factors may play an important role by shaping individual perceptions of various situations. Individual factors that impact employability self-perceptions include individual knowledge and skills gained through formal education or through work experience (Knight and Yorke, 2002, 2006; Rothwell and Arnold, 2007; Rothwell, Herbert and Rothwell, 2008). In addition, social capital by increasing knowledge and awareness of the labor market has been recognized as a contributor (Fugate et al., 2004). Furthermore, individual attitudes, dispositions, and personality traits play an essential role. Lees (2002) notes that the inclusion of personal qualities is of particular importance given the considerable bearing they have on an individual’s success. There is general consensus that non-cognitive skills, that is, personality traits, might be as important as cognitive skills for individual development, employment opportunities, future earnings, and labor market success (Semeijn et al., 2005). Other individual factors of considerable influence include demographics such as race, age, and gender. Self-management skills (De Vos et al., 2011; Hillage and Pollard, 1998; Lees, 2002) and proactive behavior (McQuaid and Lindsay, 2005) are also suggested as factors affecting perceived employability. External labor market conditions also play an important role in shaping perceived employability (Berntson et al., 2006).

Despite the proliferation of literature on employability models, and some recent measures of self-perceived employability (Berntson et al., 2006; Daniels et al., 1998; Rothwell and Arnold, 2007), an empirical approach to employability remains underdeveloped in regard to what it actually means to individuals and their experiences, aspirations, and their perceptions of their ability to compete in the labor market (Berntson et al., 2008; Rothwell et al., 2009). Limited empirical research has been done particularly in relation to the self-perceived employability of graduates, and as a result, there is a scarcity of data regarding its nature, predictors, and outcomes (Pool and Qualter, 2013). Berntson et al. (2006) suggest that future studies should focus on testing the possible multidimensionality of perceived employability by including a multitude of potential contextual and individual factors.

The goal of this study is to examine students’ self-awareness through a measure of their expectations of gaining employment. It contributes to the literature by providing evidence of the impact of factors identified as boosters to self-perceived employability. The self-perceived employability as set out within this study has determinants that include both individual and external factors. This is based on Berntson et al. (2006) and Rothwell and Rothwell (2008), but included are additional variables as outlined in the above literature. This allows us to explore questions such as the following. How important are self-responsibility factors like self-managing behavior and internship experience in boosting self-perceived employability? What role do personality traits play in the relation of self-awareness and future employability? Does gender impact self-confidence in the labor market, perhaps? Is the reputation of the university attended perceived as important by graduates entering the labor market?

Methodology

Data

Data were collected via a questionnaire in the spring and fall terms of 2011. The survey collected information from students from the College of Agriculture, Food, and Environmental Sciences (CAFES) and the College of Engineering (CE), the two largest undergraduate colleges at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA, USA. Each college is simply a distinctly managed disciplinary segment of the overall university. Questionnaires were completed in class in various courses and online. All participants were given the same information explaining the research and were assured of data confidentiality. After deleting incomplete questionnaires, a total of 978 usable responses remained.

The survey asked questions about demographics, human capital variables, satisfaction with college preparation on various job attributes, personality questions, and perceptions on the state of economy today relative to the time when recession started. Students were also asked to report how confident they were about their own employability. A copy of the complete survey is available from the authors upon request. Summary of the data and variables used are reported in Table 1.

Table 1.

Sample data and variable description.

Dependent variable
Self-perception of employability (n = 978) How confident are you that you will be employed right after graduation?
Self-perceived employability	1 = not confident—Low Self-Perceived Employability			11%
	2 = somewhat confident—Medium Self-Perceived Employability			31%
	3 = very confident—High Self-Perceived Employability			58%
Variable	Description	Obs	Mean	SD
Demographic and human capital variables
Major	1 = CAFES	400 (41%)	1.59	0.49
Major	2 = CE	578 (59%)	1.59	0.49
Gender	1 = male	650 (66%)	1.34	0.47
Gender	2 = female	328 (34%)	1.34	0.47
Academic standing	1 = freshman	0%	3.69	0.99
	2 = sophomore	14.83%
	3 = juniors	25.05%
	4 = seniors	36.61%
	5 = super-senior	23.52%
GPA	0 = up to 3.00	978	2.85	0.46
GPA	1 = above 3.00	978	2.85	0.46
Internship	0 = no internship	537 (55%)	0.45	0.50
Internship	1 = yes internship	441 (45%)	0.45	0.50
Academic experience and career integration—self-managing behavior variable (How extensively have you sought information on career opportunities in your major, such as choosing specific courses, consulting faculty, attending career fairs, and so on to help you achieve your career goals?)
Academic experience and career integration	0 = little or to some extent	501 (51%)	0.48	0.49
Academic experience and career integration	1 = to a good extent	472 (49%)	0.48	0.49
Critical thinking	2 = well prepared		Mean = 1.75
Critical thinking	1 = not to somewhat prepared		SD = 0.43
Teamwork	2 = well prepared		Mean = 1.66
Teamwork	1 = not to somewhat prepared		SD = 0.47
Oral communication	2 = well prepared		Mean = 1.59
Oral communication	1 = not to somewhat prepared		SD = 0.49
Written communication	2 = well prepared		Mean = 1.38
Written communication	1 = not to somewhat prepared		SD = 0.49
Field-specific skills	2 = well prepared		Mean = 1.62
Field-specific skills	1 = not to somewhat prepared		SD = 0.47
Personality traits variables (n = 978) (To what extent the following statements are true about you?)
More curious than cautious	0 = no
More curious than cautious	1 = yes
More organized than easy-going	0 = no
More organized than easy-going	1 = yes
More outgoing than reserved	0 = no
More outgoing than reserved	1 = yes
More trusting than suspicious	0 = no
More trusting than suspicious	1 = yes
More sensitive than secure	0 = no
More sensitive than secure	1 = yes
State of economy (n = 978) (Do you feel the state of the economy today is: (a) worse or (b) better)
State of economy today compared to 2008	0 = worse or the same as in 2008		68%
State of economy today compared to 2008	1 = better than 2008		32%

GPA: grade point average; SD: standard deviation.

Out of the respondents, 59% were engineering majors and 41% were agricultural majors. There were more male respondents (66%) than female (34%). Academic standing varied, with more than 60% of the sample being seniors (fourth-year students) or super-seniors (fifth-year students). Theoretically, students are expected to complete their degrees in 4 years although due to class constraints and other factors, many students take longer. Almost half of respondents (49%) had gained work experience via an internship. Students were asked about self-managing behavior, namely, if they had been proactive in aligning their academic experience with career goals during their college years (by choosing particular courses, consulting with faculty, attending career fairs and presentations, etc.). About half of the responses (49%) indicated self-managing behavior, that is, students indicated that they had put extensive efforts to align their future careers with their academic experience. Data show that there exist gender differences in stated self-confidence about finding a job right after graduation. A two-sample t-test with equal variances reveals statistically significant differences between the mean confidence levels for male and female students (t-stat = −4.0839, p value = 0.0000). Male students expressed on average higher confidence levels of finding a full-time job right after graduation (mean confidence_male = 2.53) compared to female students (mean confidence_female = 2.34).

Model

Self-perceived employability is a construct affected by individual factors grouped under the personal capital variables, and external factors measured through individual self-perceptions of university’s reputational capital, and the state of external labor market. The dependent variable, self-perceived employability, is the response to the following survey question How confident are you that you will be employed right after graduation? Responses were measured on a Likert-type scale from 1 to 5, where 5 means “I am extremely confident of my skills to be employed right after graduation” and 1 means “I am not at all confident in my skills to be employed right after graduation.” To avoid cells with low frequency, Categories 1 and 2 were combined into one Category (1) Low Self-Perceived Employability, Categories 4 and 5 were combined into the Category (3) High Perceived Self-Employability, while Category (2) Medium Self-Perceived Employability remained unchanged. Self-perceived employability, as defined in this study, is the result of an internal evaluation process of the individual that assesses his personal capital (knowledge, abilities, skills, and traits), as well as external conditions (reputational capital of the credential institution and state of the labor market). Personal capital variables in the model include (a) traditional academic factors such as the field of study, academic standing, grade point average (GPA); (b) self-responsibility factors such as work experience gained via internships and self-managed career behavior; and (c) personal factors such as personality traits and gender. The GPA can be roughly equated to the UK degree classification system where a GPA of 3.34–4.00 (on a scale of 0–4) is roughly equivalent to a first-class degree result in the United Kingdom.

Students from the engineering college and the agricultural college were selected to participate in this study as they represent the two largest colleges with historically very strong records of job placement for their graduates. Gender is included to capture gender-based behavioral differences among students regarding entrance in the labor market.

A separate variable was included to measure students’ self-managed career behavior. To create this variable, students were asked the following question: How extensively have you sought information on career opportunities in your major, such as choosing specific courses or course combinations, consulting faculty, attending career fairs and networking, etc. to help you achieve your career goals? Students were also asked to self-evaluate and report their personality in terms of the five main personality traits. Personality measures (a proxy for emotional intelligence) have gained importance in studies of organizational research and the most frequently used are the so-called big five personality constructs: curious, organized, outgoing, trusting, and sensitive. The impact of the reputation of the university attended on student’ self-perceived employability is measured via responses to: How well do you believe college prepared you in the areas of critical thinking, communication, teamwork and field-specific skills? Highly rated universities with high reputational capital typically produce students that are more employable and preferred by employers. So, if students perceive that their university is highly rated, they will be more confident in their own knowledge, attributes, skills and abilities, and preparedness for the labor market. The prevailing state of the economy and external labor market strongly impacts individuals’ likelihood of finding employment and will influence self-perceived employability. If there are few jobs available, employment will be low, even if applicants are highly educated and have acquired the necessary skills. To capture the impact of the state of labor market, students were asked, Do you feel the state of the economy today is: (a) worse or (b) better than in 2008?

Since there is an ordering to the categories associated with the dependent variable, a logit model is used to take into consideration the ordinal nature of the variable. Assume that there is a latent, underlying index Z for each individual, which measures the self-perceived employability of each student. The observed dependent variable is measured as Y_i = 3 if High Self-Perceived Employability, 2 if Medium Self-Perceived Employability, and 1 if Low Self-Perceived Employability. The ordered logit model assumes that there are certain cut-off points Z^* and Z^** which define the relationship between the observed and unobserved dependent variables.

Specifically

Z_{i} = α + β X_{i} + ε_{i}

(1)

where ϵ follows a logistic distribution and

Y_{i} = {\begin{array}{l} 1 & if Z_{i} \leq Z^{*} \\ 2 & if Z^{*} < Z_{i} < Z^{* *} \\ 3 & if Z_{i} \geq Z^{* *} \end{array}

(2)

The model parameters as well as the cut-off points are estimated using maximum likelihood.

Results

Many factors identified as boosters of students’ self-perceived employability turn out to be statistically significant and have the expected signs. This is to say that a number of characteristics or behaviors including work experience, self-management, and perceived college reputation resulted in an increase in a student’s confidence with respect to their employability. Results of the estimation are presented below and the estimated coefficients of the ordered logit model along with the odds ratio, z scores, p values, and goodness of fit statistics are reported in Table 2.

Table 2.

Ordered logit model estimates of self-perceived employability among college students.

Variables	Coefficients	Standard error	Odds ratio	Standard error	z value	p > \|z\|
Gender	−0.69	0.152	0.50	0.076	−4.55*	0.000
Female	−0.69	0.152	0.50	0.076	−4.55*	0.000
Standing
Junior	0.04	0.227	1.041	0.236	0.18
Senior	−0.45	0.223	0.636	0.142	−2.03 *	0.043
Super-senior	−0.35	0.241	0.7011	0.169	−1.48	0.140
Major
Engineering	0.11	0.156	1.121	0.175	0.74	0.462
GPA
3.00 and above	0.49	0.153	1.636	0.250	3.22 *	0.001
Internship
Completed	0.91	0.150	2.482	0.368	6.13 *	0.000
Self-managed career behavior/personal development planning (aligned academic experience with career planning)
To get a good degree	0.61	0.095	1.832	0.175	6.34 *	0.00
Perception of economy today relative to 2008
Better	0.14	0.168	1.150	0.194	0.83	0.406
Worse	−0.26	0.165	0.771	0.127	−1.58	0.115
College preparation skills
Critical thinking	0.30	0.164	1.34	0.221	1.79 **	0.073
Written communication	0.14	0.159	1.152	0.182	0.90	0.370
Oral communication	0.33	0.115	1.384	0.215	2.10 *	0.036
Teamwork	−0.11	0.160	0.90	0.144	−0.67	0.502
Field specific	0.35	0.144	1.42	0.21	2.42 *	0.016
Personality
Curious	0.08	0.071	1.08	0.77	1.08	0.279
Outgoing	0.13	0.065	1.14	0.07	2.05 *	0.040
Trusting	0.13	0.07	1.14	0.07	1.92 **	0.055
Sensitive	−0.21	0.07	0.81	0.05	−3.16 *	0.002
Organized	0.03	0.06	1.029	0.0625	0.48	0.630
/Cut 1	3.22			0.745
/Cut 2	5.33			0.759
No. of observations	978		LR χ²(20)	219.42
Log likelihood	−791.98857		Prob > χ²	0.0000
Pseudo R²	0.1217

LR: likelihood ratio; GPA: grade point average.

Statistically significant at alpha 5%; **statistically significant at alpha 10%.

Self-responsibility factors

Of the factors addressed in the model, the two most influential—the internship experience and the self-managed career behavior—were those factors more connected to self-responsibility on the part of the student. The two factors have more to do with ongoing student choices and relatively less to do with traditional classroom choices when compared to some of the other factors.

The most influential factor was the existence of an internship experience. According to the results, students who report work experience gained through an internship during their academic studies had an odds ratio of 2.482 meaning that as a result of an internship they were almost 2.5 times more likely to feel highly confident of their employability, controlling for other factors. The second-most heavily weighted significant factor was the self-managed career behavior with an odds ratio of 1.832. This result indicates that when students align their career planning in some way with their academic planning, they are going to be 1.8 times more likely to be confident about their employability.

Traditional academic factors

Moving toward more traditional academic descriptors such as the GPA, class standing, and major, none of the significant results are as influential as the self-responsibility factors. First, the GPA predicts a significantly higher level of confidence in employability. In particular, a student with a self-reported GPA of 3.00 and above (more or less equal to what would be an upper second-class honors in the UK degree system) will result in a student being 1.64 times more likely to feel highly confident of their employability. Of note is that with regard to the academic standing of a student (length of time in university), there is a negative relationship between higher standing and self-perceived employability. The odds of high perceived employability decrease by 36% for senior students (fourth-year students) compared to sophomores (second-year students). The factors for non-seniors (juniors and super-seniors) were not significant. Of note is that choice of major was not significant in the student’s perception of employability.

Personal factors

If we look at the influence of gender on employability, female students are 50% less likely to consider themselves as highly employable compared to male students. With respect to self-identified personality traits, different traits have different impacts on self-perceived employability. Students who consider themselves as outgoing or as trusting are 1.14 times more likely to perceive themselves as highly employable. However, students self-identifying as sensitive nature find themselves as less employable. Other personality characteristics (curious and organized) were not significant.

University reputation

The role that college reputation plays (as measured by specific skills that students see that college provides) is demonstrated by the results. Field-specific technical skills increase employability by 1.42 times, whereas generic skills such as oral communication and critical thinking increase perceived employability by 1.38 and 1.34 times, respectively. Of note is that the results did not provide any support for field of study or major to significantly increase a students’ self-perceived employability.

Economic factors

The perception of the current state of economy as compared to year 2008 on students’ self-perceived employability is not a statistically significant factor. This would indicate that students did not feel that the current state of the economy had an impact on how employable they were.

Discussion and conclusion

Even though graduates are entering the labor market during a historic economic downturn characterized by record unemployment and many of them are also facing unprecedented student loan debt, the results indicate that these external factors are not critical in terms of self-perceived employability. It would appear that the most important influences on employability remain rooted in how students operate within the university.

Self-responsibility factors

Self-responsibility, the idea that students have a key role in determining their own success during and after university, is highlighted. The two most influential factors in self-perceived employability, internship experience and self-managed career behavior, require students to look at options and make positive decisions about what they will do next. Self-managing individual behavior results in increased perceptions of self-employability and, as a result, in increased likelihood of success and the expansion of employment opportunities (De Vos et al., 2011; Lees, 2002). Our results indicate that self-managing career behavior plays a very important role and increases students’ self-confidence greatly, by 83%, according to the views of the respondents in this study.

The positive, significant relationship between employment prospects and self-managing behavior related to their self-esteem is of particular importance. Better planning can cause an increase in knowledge, experience, and a rise in the individual’s self-confidence. While high self-esteem may be misplaced in an individual case, the lack of high self-esteem can also hinder the development of future beneficial behaviors and prospects. If students become more responsible to themselves—as manifested in their self-managing behavior—then there is likely to be greater engagement and attention to what they are doing and what decisions are being made. Since the university is playing a large role in providing a set of options—curricular and co-curricular—to the student, then an improvement in the options is likely to further increase engagement.

While the quality of internship experience or of self-managed career behavior was not addressed in this study, working with industry to provide opportunities, such as internships or counseling to help students figure out what are the appropriate internship opportunities, can improve the likelihood of increased perceived employability if better matches between students and experiences are occurring.

This finding highlights the very important role that the university has to steer students towards developing self-managing behavior starting early on in their academic studies. It is critical that they become aware at an early stage of their studies of what they need in order to be employable or to do whatever else they choose to do after graduation, and thus, the university should provide the opportunities so students develop these necessary skills. Furthermore, students should be able to reflect on their experiences and be able to adequately articulate their skills and learned abilities. In this way, they will be prepared to effectively manage the academic choices that will lead them into being more successful at whatever they choose to do after graduation, whether into employment or anything else.

Work-related learning can play an important role in boosting a graduate’s chances of either being employed at all after graduation or securing a job. But how much of an impact does work experience have on self-perceived employability? Results from this study support a very significant and positive relationship between work experience gained during academic studies and employability perceptions. Estimates show that by gaining work experience via an internship, self-perceived employability of the student increases by 250%. This finding suggests that work-related learning should become a necessary and possibly mandatory part of the academic experience if, as some or perhaps many might agree, the role of a university is to prepare graduates for the workplace.

A creative strategy in setting up partnerships between the university and businesses can be particularly effective in expanding experiential learning, helping students gain practical, work-relevant experience, increasing self-confidence, and greatly enhancing their employability. Though the vast majority of universities do engage in some form of partnership with the industry, if employability is considered to be as important as some claim it to be, more efforts should be put into expanding these possibilities for all graduates to participate (CBI, 2009). A wide variety of partnerships and programs are used successfully by universities, including 1 year sandwich work placements as part of a degree program, summer work placements, or even a shorter experience placements of a few weeks long (QAA, 2009).

University reputation and traditional academic factors

Employment can be influenced by perceptions of the quality of graduates from certain universities. This perpetuates the idea that graduates from reputable universities possess broader forms of social and cultural capital than graduates from less reputable universities. Findings from this study show that college reputation (as measured by students’ beliefs in their college preparation, in problem-solving, critical thinking skills, technical and communication skills) is important to students and significantly enhances how employable they view themselves to be. However, degree subject studied is not an important factor in influencing how employable they view themselves to be. It appears that the labor market values a complete set of graduate skills, attributes, experiences, and dispositions more than just the field of study. Alternatively, it could be that students see themselves competing for jobs with students with similar subject backgrounds or for jobs for which the field of study is a requirement for the job. Hence, degree subject studied plays less of a factor in perceived employability.

Students with a higher GPA have greater confidence in their employability. If GPA is perceived as a measure of students’ efforts, knowledge, skills, attributes learned, and experiences gained during college and their ability to learn, then a higher GPA could mean that higher achievement in these measures makes them more competitive for jobs they desire and, thus, more employable. A student with a lower GPA may feel that because they have achieved less, they would be less competitive for the jobs they desire and, hence, relatively less employable.

Finally, results show that academic standing negatively impacts how employable they view themselves to be. It appears that as students near graduation, that is, as they move from the first year of university to the second and ultimately to the fourth and last year (the senior year), they are increasingly less confident in their employability. This might be due to the fact that prospect of looking for a job becomes more immediate and the uncertainty of finding one more apparent as they get closer to entering the labor market after university.

Personal factors

Gender has a direct impact on issues of self-confidence and self-esteem that are crucial when dealing with graduate employability. Results show that male students feel 50% more confident in their employability skillset compared to female students. Men have better options in the labor market and are therefore viewed as more employable (McQuaid and Lindsay, 2005) so this may perhaps account for their greater confidence. The issue of gender highlights a plethora of potential causes that this study does not address. One strong possibility is that the nature of investigating self-perceived employability is, by its nature, more focused on the view that males are more likely to set themselves apart than females. Males with high self-esteem are often considered more likely to see themselves as being better than average, for example, more employable, because their self-image is more dependent on being better than others. Females, on the other hand, are seen as more communal in nature and value the collective and identify more with the group and, as a result, are less likely to set themselves apart, for example, see themselves as more employable (Joseph et al., 1992). This particular result could very well reflect the more communal nature (versus the individual nature) of female self-perception in that women are more likely to view themselves as being connected with and similar to those around them compared to males who tend to value a separation from the group (Joseph et al., 1992). The big question, then, is whether the idea of individual self-perceived employability will appropriately capture the needs and feelings of females. Alternatively, if the idea of measuring self-perceived employability of females is appropriate, then the results indicate that the university needs to do more to enhance self-confidence among female students so they feel secure of their identity, knowledge, and skills when entering the labor market.

There are, however, limitations to this study, as with all others. The data used in this analysis came from only two colleges (agriculture and engineering). Future studies should expand the focus by including observations from other disciplines. Data used are self-reported and reliant on participant self-perceptions. The sample is country-specific. However, given the role that economic and socio-cultural factors play on individual perceptions, beliefs about what influences individual employability might vary by country. Furthermore, literature suggests that external or environmental factors are important in understanding employability, so a more refined construct for capturing the effect of external factors such as the state of the labor market is needed to better understand its role on employability.

It appears that enhancing students’ employability should be a common goal for individuals and the university alike. If students are responsible for their own employability, then the responsibility of the university is to ensure conditions that promote, guide, and facilitate development of their employability. By establishing adequate conditions that support and develop a reflective learner, implementing coordinated strategies through curriculum design, and supporting effective learning and assessment, career education, and personal development planning (CBI, 2009), the university becomes an effective partner for both student growth and development as well as of the employability of its graduates.

In helping students manage how employable they view themselves to be, the university is fundamentally managing the active learning of its students at a broad level. The results indicate that how highly employable they view themselves to be can result from a high level of engagement as manifested through self-management, work/internships, and the perception that students have been well-prepared by the university. Students should be given the opportunity to develop self-management behavior and make use of experiential learning while within higher education. Not only does the university have to provide such opportunities but it must also ensure that students are aware of what they are choosing and why. The nature of active learning incorporates this awareness and engagement.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Author biographies

Eivis Qenani is an associate professor in the Agribusiness Department at Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo, CA, USA. Her research interests include employability, organizational behavior, and consumer demand. Address: Department of Agribusiness, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA, USA. [email: eqenanip@calpoly.edu]

Neal MacDougall is an associate professor in the Agribusiness Department at Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo, CA, USA. His research interests include learning and assessment and sustainability issues. Address: Department of Agribusiness, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA, USA. [email: nmacdoug@calpoly.edu]

Carol Sexton is a lecturer in the Agribusiness Department at Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo, CA, USA. Her research interests include labor management and organizational behavior. Address: Department of Agribusiness, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA, USA. [email: csexton@calpoly.edu]

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