Entry-level job pursuit intention: assessing person-environment fit in India

PurposePerson-environment (PE) fit theory suggests that value congruence (fit) leads to the job pursuits intention (Cable and Judge, 1996) which is also influenced by cultural norms (Ma and Allen, 2009). Due to stringent job market condition along with its people, as a part of collectivistic culture, having poor self-concept consistency, value congruence may unfold different phenomenon in Indian context. Therefore, the present study intends to explore the existing fit theory on different cultural norms and different job market condition with entry-level job pursuits as participants.Design/methodology/approachThe fit was measured both objectively and subjectively in a mixed method research design. Top 100 institutes ranked in NIRF (National Institutional Ranking Framework) (under Management category) were approached for data collection and 41 institutes agreed to participate. Data were collected in four phases from 2,714 entry-level job pursuits and domain experts based on web-based job advertisements. Krippendorff's alpha was calculated for measuring objective fit, and the subjective fit was measured through quadratic structural equation modeling with response surface analysis.FindingsFindings revealed lack of value congruence objectively; and no influencing role of subjective fit in job pursuits intention. This indicated that neither Indian employers nor entry-level job pursuits were concerned about value congruence. The post-hoc analysis suggested that poor self-concept consistency as a cultural norm led to such atypical findings.Originality/valueThe present study suggests that fit may lead to different phenomena of entry-level job pursuits intention with different contextual and cultural norms.

Impression Management Tactics in Job Interviews among Fresh graduates in Malaysia: A Case Study in a Workplace

The job interview is a viable assessment platform for interviewers to determine the viable prospective graduate for job hiring. During such critical meeting point, the fate of fresh graduates is decided by representatives of an organisation on the suitability of an interviewee for the job. Yet many fresh graduates struggle at such entry level gatekeeping to the professional workplace in view of inability to impress the interviewer. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate whether impression management tactics are portrayed by the fresh graduates during job interviews. They were 15 interviewees who participated in the present study. The job interview data from an organisation was analysed qualitatively using impression management tactics (IMTs) theories. The findings show that the interviewees were poor impression management tactics; interviewees indicated lack of self-presentation and exemplification as positive indicators in securing a job. Hence, impression management tactics are essential in job interviews.

What's Missing From the College Transcript?

This chapter describes a qualitative study of how organizations use information to evaluate and hire graduating students into entry-level positions from one pre-professional undergraduate program. The study investigates how campus recruiters and hiring managers make sense of student job applicants' cognitive, non-cognitive, and technical abilities from data presented in résumés, academic transcripts, and through various interview techniques. The findings provide insight into the opportunities and challenges to incorporating alternative representations of learning—Comprehensive Learner Records—into the recruitment and hiring process. The findings also reveal how information about learning and learners is used to establish pipelines for recruiting and hiring recent college graduates. The study informs the design of future assessment and credentialing infrastructures, with the goal of expanding how “learning” is measured, defined, and represented in higher education to enhance diversity, equity, and opportunity for learners.

The Need to Consider Requiring Trauma Training in Entry-Level Academic Training Programs in Clinical Mental Health Counseling

The COVID-19 pandemic and heightened awareness of racial injustice and discrimination in the United States are likely to have a negative impact on mental health. This is concerning, given the already alarming prevalence rates of trauma exposure and adverse childhood experiences in the U.S. general population prior to the current pandemic, their immediate and long-lasting effects on human development across the life span, and their documented effects on adult chronic health conditions. For clinical mental health counselors (CMHCs) to respond effectively to the needs of the U.S. general population, entry-level counseling programs must provide comprehensive trauma training and education. The purpose of this article is to provide information about clinical competencies and relevant training requirements for CMHCs in trauma prevention and treatment to highlight the need to require comprehensive trauma training in entry-level academic training programs for CMHCs through relevant research and policy.

Social Capital and Knowledge Networks of Software Developers

Software development is a problem-solving activity, where ideas are combined in complex ways to create a software product that embodies new knowledge. In this endeavor, software developers constantly look for actionable knowledge to help solve the problem at hand. While knowledge management efforts in the software development domain traditionally involved technical initiatives such as knowledge repositories, experience factories, and lessons-to-learn databases, there is a growing appreciation in the software community of the role of developers' personal knowledge networks in software development. However, research is scarce on the nature of these networks, the knowledge resources accessed from these networks, and the differences, if any, between developers of different experience levels. This research seeks to fill this void. Based on a case study in a software development organization, this research explores the nature of knowledge networks of developers from a social capital perspective. Specifically, it examines the structural and relational dimensions of developers' knowledge networks, identifies the specific actionable knowledge resources accessed from these networks, and explores how entry-level and more experienced developers differ along these dimensions. The findings from the qualitative analysis, backed by limited quantitative analysis of the case study data underpin the discussion, implications for practice and future research directions.