What Motivational Processes Underpin Student Engagement with Employability? A Critical Review

Abstract

There are concerns that students fail to engage with employability soon enough in their studies, and do not seek the best available support. This chapter explores the role that motivation plays in students' career management behaviours, notably career exploration, decision-making, and job search. The literature highlights the crucial role played by selfefficacy, i.e. belief in one's ability to perform a task, which is informed by personal experience and feedback. Time spent on career exploration (i.e. reflecting on one's own qualities and exploring opportunities) is associated with greater confidence in making career decisions. Job search behaviours, such as effort, is associated with better career outcomes. However, there is a gap in the literature regarding how earlier exploration and decision activities inform the job search. This chapter identifies opportunities for addressing this gap, and the potential value of exploring student job search strategies. Yet while attention to motivation may inform how we work with individual students, it remains necessary to consider environmental conditions in the labour market.

The Impact of Perceived Employability on the Employment Quality of Management Graduates: The Mediating Role of Focused Job Search

“…The fourth proposition (H 4 ) found internal perceived employability to positively affect focused job search. Consistent with the past studies (Clements, 2019;De Battisti et al, 2016), it indicates that positive selfevaluations have prompted the individuals to clarify goals and plan job search activities that increase their chances of success. However, with no significant effect of external perceived employability on focused job search, it remains unclear how labour market perceptions would affect the graduates' commitment to the search process.…”

Business Graduate-ness and Work-readiness: A Comparative Analysis of Public and Private Universities in Bangladesh

“…Business education is supposed to enable students to learn mastery of challenging tasks in case of job search and job findings and generate 'work-ready' graduates (Clements, 2019). Compared to other discipline, business education is much more expensive in terms of tuition and other fees, which can be justified by enhanced level of graduate employability (Tomlinson, 2012 andTholen, 2014).…”