University students have different backgrounds and varied experiences. This diversity has frequently been examined with regard to performance in Higher Education. However, much less attention has been paid to its significance concerning employability. The investigation of this potential relationship is the focus of this study. In this research, 429 students at a German university were assessed on the strength of their employability, which here is defined as a multi-factorial construct. The Career Resources Questionnaire (CRQ) was used (Hirschi et al., 2019) which is a comprehensive instrument that analyses the self-assessed strength of twelve essential career resources amongst respondents. The results were then related to several individual preconditions: existing or non-existing commitment to voluntary work, sporting activity or sporting inactivity and being a first-generation student (FGS) or a continuing-generation student (CGS). These characteristics were chosen, because they are commonly represented in the student population. In addition, some socio-economic implications are discussed. Significant differences were found between the participant groups. Some results correspond with the findings of existing studies, others lead to new explanatory approaches. Based on the overall findings, recommendations for career counselling as well as for seminars in career orientation are given. For example, students' experiences outside the university environment can be used in career counselling to strengthen perceived employability or a supportive approach to first-generation students can lead to the development of career-related strengths.
While humanities graduates can aspire to many fields of work, these labour markets are mostly fragmented and relatively small. In order to be able to enter one of these potential professional fields in a targeted and successful manner, students in the humanities need to develop an individual professional profile. This profile comprises individual characteristics and competencies which include but also go beyond the qualifications from the study programme. Therefore, the authors postulate that specifically students in the humanities have to make many decisions in the course of their studies to prepare for a targeted career entry. From this background, it is important to know what factors are connected with their decision-making ability. This exploratory study examines the relationship of various individual factors with career decision-making adaptability (CDA) and thus on the decision-making competence on a sample of 872 humanities students from German and Swiss universities. A significant relationship with self-efficacy, conscientiousness, perseverance and professional information on CDA was found. The decision-making competence of teacher-training and non-teacher training students did not vary significantly. This study is based on the situation in German-speaking countries, but is also intended to be a stimulus for international comparison.
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