Employability attributes and personality preferences of postgraduate business management students

Abstract

Orientation: The demand for sustained employability and a proactive career agency has led to a renewed interest in the dispositional and psychological attributes of students and employees – like their employability attributes and personality preferences – because these relate to the proactive management of their career development in a changing employment world.Research purpose: The purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between employees’ employability attributes (as the Employability Attributes Scale measures them) and their personality preferences (as the Myers-Briggs Type indicator, Form M, measures them). Motivation for the study: There seems to be a paucity of information about how employees’ personality preferences relate to their employability attributes in South Africa’s multicultural organisational context.Research design, approach and method: The authors conducted a quantitative survey. It involved a non-probability sample of 304 early career adults enrolled for an Honour’s degree in business management in an open distance learning higher education institution. They used correlational statistics and multiple regression analyses to analyse the data.Main findings: The authors observed a number of significant relationships between the participants’ personality preferences and their employability attributes.Practical/managerial implications: Career counsellors and human resource practitioners need to recognise how employees’ personality preferences influence their employability attributes in the management of their career development and employability.Contribution/value add: The findings add to the existing career literature on the career metacompetencies that influence employees’ employability. They also provide valuable information that organisations can use for career development support and counselling practices in the contemporary world of work.

Recent Issues of Employability and Career Management

“…In the wake of globalization and the subsequent adjustments in the world of working, individuals need to have a set of skills that are globally known or accepted. These came to be known as global employability skills and they refer to individuals', attributes and personality preferences -because these relate to the proactive management of their career development (Potgieter & Coetzee, 2013). The presence of these skills is especially important in the case of graduates as their employability constitutes a sense of self-directedness or personal agency in retaining or securing a job or form of employment globally.…”

“…Employability presupposes pro-active career behaviours and capacities that help people to fulfil, acquire or create work through the optimal use of both occupation-related and career meta-competencies (Potgieter & Coetzee, 2013). In the wake of globalization and the subsequent adjustments in the world of working, individuals need to have a set of skills that are globally known or accepted.…”

“…In this regard, employability is a psychosocial construct that represents the career-related attributes that promote adaptive cognition, behaviour and affect, and increase one's suitability for appropriate and sustained employment opportunities (Fugate et al, 2004;Potgieter & Coetzee, 2013). It embodies individual characteristics that foster adaptive cognition, behaviour, and affect, and enhance the individual-work interface.…”

The significance of employee biographics in explaining employability attributes

“…Cultural competence includes the capacity to accept and become familiar with the customs, values and beliefs of other cultures, self-confident participation in intercultural exchanges and embracing the notion of cultivating culturally diverse associations (Coetzee 2012;Bezuidenhout & Coetzee 2011;Potgieter 2012). Sociable, culturally and interpersonally competent individuals seem to possess well-developed employability attributes, while individuals who are more deliberate and prefer a wellplanned career path seem to possess less well-developed employability attributes (Potgieter & Coetzee 2013). Lloyd and Hartel (2010) suggest that individual intercultural competence may influence individual job satisfaction, trust and affective commitment to the job as well as the individual's assessment of team effectiveness.…”

“…Individual autonomy and self-management, goal-directed behaviour, perseverance, proactive pursuit of learning opportunities and implementing creative solutions to problems comprise the construct of self-efficacy (Coetzee 2012). Employers nowadays require employees who can and do actively manage and control their own careers, with little help and/or input from the employer (Coetzee 2012;Fugate, Kinicki & Ashforth 2004;Potgieter & Coetzee 2013;Sewell & Pool 2010). Positive, well-developed self-efficacy is positively associated with job satisfaction and successful careers (Choi et Emotional literacy is the capability to be aware of and manage emotions -one's own as well as those of others -or emotional situations in order to achieve positive social outcomes (Potgieter 2012).…”