Building a sustainable start: The role of career competencies, career success, and career shocks in young professionals' employability

Abstract

Despite the established view that investing in developing one's career competencies would lead to career success and employability, little is known about the role of career shocks (i.e., positive and negative unexpected career-related events) in this relationship. To examine the role of career shocks in the relationship between career competencies, career success and employability, we analyzed data from 704 Dutch young professionals (21-35 years). Results showed that young professionals who have developed high levels of career competencies reported higher levels of perceived employability. The relationship between career competencies and perceived employability was partially mediated by subjective career success (i.e., career satisfaction). Negative career shocks undermined the mediated relationship between career competencies and perceived employability, via early career success, whereas positive career shocks strengthened this relationship. This study contributes to the literature on employability by demonstrating that career shocks play an important role in young professionals' early career development in tandem with career competencies and career success.

Implications of COVID-19 on the Labor Market of Saudi Arabia: The Role of Universities for a Sustainable Workforce

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When and why do negative organization-related career shocks impair career optimism? A conditional indirect effect model

“…By doing so, it would be possible to investigate if one of these negative organization-related career shocks has stronger effects than the others, or if specific combinations are especially harmful. For instance, Blokker et al (2019) built count variables, which captured the aggregated scores of different shocks to investigate the combined effects of different negative career shocks. Moreover, future research should identify additional organization-related career shocks (e.g., unexpectedly losing one's job; Akkermans et al, 2018), in terms of additions to the three here used shocks (i.e., reduction-in-workforce, bankruptcy, major ethical scandal), which were identified by Seibert et al (2013).…”

Employability as a compass for career success: a time‐lagged test of a causal model

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