Vocational mindset perspective for supporting graduate employability: a mixed-method investigation

ABSTRACT

In India, 80% of graduating engineers remain either underemployed or unemployed due to lack of specific professional and generic skills. This study focuses on understanding how engineering graduates can psychologically orient themselves concerning their career opportunities. Specifically, this study looks at the intersection between career planning attitudes, locus of control and employability perceptions of students. The study further investigates whether such career orientations can make graduate job-seekers more assertive and in control of their preparations for job interviews. A two-stage mixed-method design is applied to investigate this issue. In study 1, data is collected from 497 final year engineering students from several technical institutions from South India and subsequently analysed through hierarchical linear regression analysis. The findings reveal that locus of control orientation positively influences students’ internal cognitive processes, affecting their overall belief about their employability potential. In study 2, in-depth interviews with eight corporate recruiters and six placement officers are conducted through an E-Delphi setting. The objective of study 2 is to understand whether generic employability aspects are considered important while deciding a candidate’s suitability and how these cognitive career orientations can be inculcated appropriately among the students. The importance of developing a vocational mindset is stressed, and suggestions to foster the same have been explained at length.

KEYWORDS:

• Employability
• career planning
• locus of control
• vocational mindset

Acknowledgement

This study was partially supported by a project grant sponsored by the ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education. We sincerely thank Dr. V. Nagi Reddy for his valuable inputs throughout the duration of the project to refine our research design.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13636820.2022.2138955

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education [IFHE/RC/2015/APRIL/41].