The role of career goal discrepancy in the relationship between dispositional employability and goal management strategies

Purpose. Fugate, Kinicki and Ashforth (2004) described dispositional employability as composed by three components: career identity, personal adaptability and human and social capital. Previous research showed that these resources are important during the transition from university to work, especially in terms of antecedents of the success of graduates’ job search (i.e. Brown et al., 2006; Guan et al., 2014). This study intends to explore the effects of career identity, personal adaptability and social capital on career goal management strategies (goal engagement and disengagement) implemented by college students near to graduation. Moving from a goal-oriented perspective that considers very relevant for young adults’ career development the capacity to disengage from unachievable goals and to engage in alternative, meaningful ones (Creed & Hook, 2015), we expect that the relationship between dispositional employability’s dimensions and career goal management strategies would be mediated by career goal discrepancies. Design/Methodology. A two-wave data collection was conducted among a sample of 134 graduates of University of Bologna: participants provided information on employability dimensions at Time 1 and on career goal discrepancies and management strategies at Time 2. Results. This study shows direct and indirect effects via career goal discrepancies of employability dimensions on career goal management strategies (goal engagement and disengagement). Limitations. The major limitation is the use of self-report data. Research/Practical Implications. The study contributes to explain the process from which dispositional employability enhance the probability to achieve the personal career goals since at the end of university. These findings suggests the importance to enhance the college students’ ability of thinking about their career goals and exploring what might be done to reach them or set new ones that are more realistic. Originality/Value. The study focused on two yet under-explored constructs that are career goal discrepancies and career goal management strategies.