Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the career information sources used by university students and identify whether the use of the various sources differs across three generational cohorts.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was administered to 322 students majoring in food marketing and related fields at 12 US universities. The results were compared to prior survey results from 1995 to 2004.
Findings
Students continue to use many of the same sources for career information, but use them more frequently. College professors/courses were the most fruitful sources, followed closely by career fair/company visit, job/internship, and family/relatives. Although career centers and counselors were used less frequently, their use is growing. Written materials are used the least, and their use is declining.
Research limitations/implications
The sample is limited to the food and consumer packaged goods (“food/CPG”) industry. It is also limited to US college students.
Practical implications
If organizations and recruiters want to reach and attract millennial students, establishing and fostering relationships with university personnel, especially faculty, is critical. Investing in course activities (e.g. guest lectures, case studies) and industry experiences (e.g. jobs and internships) is also important.
Originality/value
This is the first study to examine the use of career information sources across generational cohorts specifically in the context of the food/CPG industry. The results are bolstered by robust samples and the time-lag design.
Demand and supply integration is the subject of increasing scholarly attention. The theoretical emphasis on combining market and supply chain data as the basis for strategic and operational decision making is particularly relevant in the context of Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) supply chains, and offers the basis for advancing our understanding and knowledge in this field. Point‐of‐sale (POS) data are commonly used as the demand signal in CPG supply chains. Using empirical data, this research demonstrates that POS data can be influenced by nondemand factors. We present a number of issues raised by this finding.
This study examines whether job attribute preferences differ across three generational cohorts (i.e., cohorts of undergraduate students from 1995, 2004, and 2013). In 2013, we surveyed undergraduate students from several U.S. universities. We also obtained archival results from surveys administered to undergraduate students in 1995 and 2004. We found that salary/benefits, career advancement, and flexible work policies become more important across all three generational cohorts, whereas gender/racial equality increased in importance only from 2004 to 2013. Leadership showed no net gain from the 1995 to 2013 cohorts. Although most job attributes increased in importance, they largely have the same relative importance. Therefore, organizations should pause before making wholesale changes to workplace incentives and practices to cater to the new generation. To our knowledge, this is the first study to include U.S. millennial college students in the comparison of job attribute preferences across generations.
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