Transition from University to the Labour Market: The Impact of Personal Variables in Graduates’ Perceptions of Self-Efficacy

Abstract

The transition from university to the labour market is a crucial period for graduates. It is typically characterized by a high degree of uncertainty. Self-efficacy may be a determinant in the process, but the research so far has only considered students or graduates shortly after graduation, strongly compromising its conclusions on the findings. This study aims at exploring the variables which explain the different levels of self-efficacy of graduates in transition to the labour market. A total of 694 graduates who completed their degrees at two Portuguese Higher Education Institutions in the last five years were subjected to a questionnaire. Regression and multivariate analyses based on decision trees (Recursive Partitioning for Classification) showed that (1) older graduates have higher self-efficacy in adapting to work; (2) male graduates have higher self-efficacy in emotional regulation when looking for a job; and (3) graduates with higher grades demonstrated more self-efficacy in job-seeking behaviours. The results also revealed that the graduates’ scientific area, the parents’ level of education and undergoing internships during higher education are also related to self-efficacy. Overall, the study contributed to a better understanding of the construction process of self-efficacy beliefs and its importance in the job-seeking process and in the adaptation to work.

Importance of Skills Development for Ensuring Graduates Employability: The Case of Bangladesh

“…The primary goal will be to produce competitive university graduates from tertiary educational institutes who can overcome unexpected and anticipated obstacles, and turn them into a source of development and differentiation for their organizations through the utilization of the skills they have gained through education and training. As a result, in post-COVID-19 periods, academic competence alone will no longer be sufficient in the eyes of employers for employing university graduates, and without proper competency and skills development, university graduates will fail to secure future employment in post-COVID periods (Buheji and Buheji 2020;Paulos et al 2021). However, multiple works over the year by Shohel et al (2021), Monem andBaniamin (2010), andHossain et al (2016) have shown that the higher educational (HE) institutes in the country are still following outdated curriculums and have not adopted the use of ICT in education.…”

Construção de um Instrumento de Medida sobre a Transição da Universidade para o Emprego: Estudo Piloto do Questionário TUE

“…Giret (2011), por sua vez, centrou a sua análise na forma como a formação superior pode contribuir para facilitar a transição, tendo em conta características da formação do estudante como o tipo de curso ou o grau obtido. Referem-se, também, estudos que procuraram analisar o contributo dos estágios curriculares para a perceção que os diplomados têm sobre o mercado de trabalho e acerca da sua preparação para a transição (Silva et al, 2016;Tsai et al, 2017), bem como para a perceção sobre a autoeficácia na procura de emprego (Paulos et al, 2021).…”