INVESTIGATING FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ WORK READINESS FOR THE JOB MARKET

Abstract

Worldwide research has indicated that recruiters are not satisfied with the skills and competencies that employees especially graduates come up with. Megatrends like globalization and technological advancements such as the fourth industrial revolution are reshaping the workplace environment. Skills that were thought of as most important before are not perceived as important in today’s world. The unemployment rate among youth is also increasing in Pakistan. This scenario stresses stakeholders specifically, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to focus and investigate the factors that affect students’ work readiness for the job market. It is proposed in this study that the factors that positively influence and enhance the students’ work readiness are discipline-specific knowledge, emotional intelligence, self-efficacy, self-management skills, career development skills, and transferable generic skills. The investigation of the impact of these factors on students’ work readiness is the aim of this study. The population of this study consists of students in the final year of Bachelors in Business Administration (BBA) in Sindh, Pakistan. The cluster sampling technique is used to draw the sample, while the calculated sample size is 377. Data is collected through self-administered survey questionnaires from the Higher Education Institutions, and analyzed using PLS-SEM. The results of this study show that, all the factors positively impact students’ work readiness for the job market but career development skills impact negatively. It is recommended that students, Higher Education Institutions, and governments should focus on these determinants to enhance work readiness. Furthermore, it is directed for future research that these factors should be investigated in country contexts with mixed methodology. In addition, more research is directed to investigate the impact of career development skills on students’ work readiness so that the picture would become clearer.