Personal Employability and employment outcomes in a universitysamplea study before and after COVID-19

Resumen

Labor market uncertainty makes it difficult to get (and keep) a high-quality job, even for graduate students. Moreover, this situation has worsened due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this study is to test the influence of personal employability on maintaining (or being able to find) a high-quality job in a sample of young university graduates who faced the job market crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We focus on the four personal employability dimensions of Fugate et al.’s (2004) model: career identity, personal adaptability, human capital, and social capital. Our hypotheses state that the four dimensions of employability are positively related to employment status and job quality indicators (salary, horizontal fit, job satisfaction). The results obtained in a sample of 136 university graduates show that social capital contributes to being employed after several months of job market uncertainty due to COVID-19. Moreover, career identity positively predicts horizontal fit and job satisfaction. The study shows the importance of social capital and career identity in uncertain job market situations to foster positive employment outcomes