Determinants of the employability of recent university graduates in the context of a developing country. Validation of a short instrument of 20 items

Abstract

The employability of recent college graduates has become a major concern globally. Studies carried out in developed countries have shown an operationalization in five dimensions of the employability construct; such as: 1) Occupational experience, 2) Anticipation and optimization, 3) Personal flexibility, 4) Corporate sense and 5) Balance. This study provides new contributions on these components by replicating [26] in a developing country, a quite different political, social and economic reality compared to other analyses. To achieve a good fit for the model, 2 items had to be eliminated, resulting in a shorter instrument consisting of only 20 items to evaluate the employability of this profile of people. The new model showed good convergent validity, however, the discriminant validity does not meet the necessary indicators for its compliance, and thus an exploratory factor analysis should be carried out, since it could be that the number of dimensions has reduced. It is also suggested to carry out more studies in order to corroborate or refute the data obtained in the present study.