Abstract
Previous studies have shown a relationship between the characteristics of the first job and the profile of recent university graduates, considering factors such as the university of origin, socioeconomic level, academic performance and skills development. From an approach to the theory of social capital developed by Bourdieu, it is argued that the personal networks built before and during university make informal mechanisms available for job opportunities and, therefore, can establish inequalities. However, graduates do not necessarily activate or mobilize all the mechanisms -informal and institutional- that are available to them, their behavior will depend on the struggle between their driving factors and barriers to the search. This is when Seginer´s concept of future orientation becomes important and it is manifested in the graduates’ vision of his own professional development, but also in the routes that they subjectively avoid. Following those statements, this research focuses on the different paths that recent graduates could take in their job search processes and how these processes are mediated by some important aspects of their profile. This is a quantitative study on graduates of management and economics careers from 2015-2018 at a private non-profit university in Peru and combines data from the university’s Graduate Monitoring System and primary sources based on a survey sample of 500 graduates. As it is a single university, any factor derived from prestige or institutional resources is isolated, however, the selected university is characterized by the diversity in the composition of its students, which allows an analysis of different profiles.
Presenters
Maria Elena EsparzaProfesora Asociada, Departamento Académico de Ciencias de la Gestión, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Future Orientation, Social Capital, Job Search
