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To increase the understanding of how entrepreneurship education impacts entrepreneurial careers, the purpose of the paper is to investigate the role that a venture creation program (VCP) might have in mitigating or surpassing a lack of other antecedents of entrepreneurial careers. In particular, the authors focus on entrepreneurial pedigree and prior entrepreneurial experience.

Data from graduates of VCPs at three universities in Northern Europe were collected through an online survey. Questions addressed graduate background prior to education, yearly occupational employment subsequent to graduation and graduates' own perceptions of entrepreneurial activity in employment positions. The survey was sent to 1,326 graduates and received 692 responses (52.2% response rate).

The type of VCP, either independent (Ind-VCP) or corporate venture creation (Corp-VCP), influenced the mitigation of prior entrepreneurial experience. Prior entrepreneurial experience, together with Ind-VCP, made a career as self-employed more likely. However, this was not the case for Corp-VCP in subsequently choosing intrapreneurial careers. Entrepreneurial pedigree had no significant effect on career choice other than for hybrid careers.

Entrepreneurial experience gained from VCPs seems to influence graduates toward future entrepreneurial careers. Evidence supports the conclusion that many VCP graduates who lack prior entrepreneurial experience or entrepreneurial pedigree can develop sufficient entrepreneurial competencies through the program.

This study offers novel evidence that entrepreneurship education can compensate for a lack of prior entrepreneurial experience and exposure for students preparing for entrepreneurial careers.

The purpose of this study is to examine the underexplored link between entrepreneurship education (EE) and graduate employability in the higher education (HE) sector in the United Kingdom (UK).

The study draws on a thematic content analysis of semi-structured interviews with 45 professionals in UK HE, representing the “supply” side of EE.

The findings demonstrate a unidirectional link between EE and employability outcomes. This link is affected by societal, stakeholder-related, and teaching and learning-related factors.

Although the value of universities’ initiatives connecting EE and employability for economic development is emphasized, the study does not provide direct empirical evidence for this effect. Macroeconomic research is needed.

EE and employability would benefit from knowledge exchange between universities’ stakeholders and a broader understanding of what constitutes a valuable graduate outcome.

The study reveals the benefits of EE on a micro level. Participation in EE supports the connection between individual investments in HE and employability.

Based on human capital theory, many policymakers regard EE as a vehicle through which the relationship between investments in HE and career success on a micro level and economic growth on a macro level can be nurtured. Challenging this logic, the study highlights the potential of institutional theory to explain a contextualization of the link between EE and employability on a national level.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the differences between labour market requirements in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the 21st century and university graduates’ level of knowledge, skills and aspects of competence (KSAs) qualification benchmark.

The study used a discourse analysis methodology, which is a qualitative and interpretive method of analysing texts. The content for the analysis was extracted from Scopus, Ebscohost, Proquest, Google Scholar, Web of Science, news, publications, thesis papers, dissertations and other research papers. A narrative approach for analysing the content was adopted.

The findings reveal that new graduates often encounter difficulties in searching for jobs due to a lack of awareness of how to conduct an employment search that best aligns their KSA with the requirements and needs of the labour market. The study concludes that to increase the employability of graduates, higher education institutions should reduce the KSAs gap by collaborating with the private sector and providing students with relevant, industry-based job experience before graduation.

This study investigates the gap between graduate KSAs and labour market requirements in the 21st-century UAE. The findings of the study encapsulate the weaknesses and shortcomings of the current educational systems amid the reform agenda in the UAE. It also deliberates upon the state-of-the-art recommendations regarding making the country a knowledge-based economy and society.

Participation of women in engineering education is considerably low in India, although it is increasing in recent years. Also, engineering is primarily treated as a male-dominated profession, and the authors do not find many women in this sector. What factors contribute to this significant gender differences in engineering education and labour market in India? In this context, this study aims to examine the factors that explain the gender variations in academic performance and labour market outcomes (placement and earnings) of engineering graduates in India.

The paper is based on primary survey data from fourth-year engineering students in Delhi, collected in 2018–2019, with a total sample size of 3186. The study uses Ordinary least square method (OLS) and Heckman selection model to analyse gender differences in academic performance and labour market outcomes of engineering graduates, respectively.

The study finds that academic performance of male students is around 10.4% more than female students. However, this difference is heavily influenced by various socioeconomic and institutional factors. Interestingly, 3% of female engineering graduates have received more job offers than males, which contradicts the common belief that women engineers face job discrimination in the labour market in India. However, the authors find that male engineers earn around 7% more than female engineers shows the evidence of pro-male gender wage inequality in earnings. The findings support that there is a considerable variation in academic performance and earnings between male and female engineering graduates.

While the authors find some literature in the area of gender difference in the academic performance and labour market among university graduates in India, studies in the field of engineering education are sparse. In a context where fewer women are found in the field of engineering education along with low participation in the labour market, the findings of this study significantly contribute to the policy making.

This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the effects of active political engagement in port-of-entry jobs and employment pathways for graduate students in a post-communist context which is characterized by clientelism. The data are derived from a structured survey of a small local labour market where political clientelism is pronounced due to the strong network ties. Controlling for both demand and supply factors, the authors identify a profile for those who are more prone to engage politically in exchange for public sector jobs, which are in turn vulnerable to regime changes.

The authors use data from a sample of 191 students that records month-to-month employment states for three consecutive years (2012–2014). The method attempts to replicate an experimental design with repeated measures before and after the June 2013 government elections. The data is analysed using sequence analysis with optimal matching and difference-in-difference methods.

The analysis provides evidence of links between political engagement and selection onto different employment pathways under conditions of political clientelism. The pathways themselves are also shown to be differentially impacted by the 2013 election (positively or negatively). Together, these results are supportive of claims that jobs in Albania, particularly those in the public sector, are linked to the short-term presence of vote-buying. This is shown to be the case even for this sample of educated members of the labour force (i.e. university graduates). The analysis also finds evidence of accumulative disadvantages over time, in relation to subjective perceptions of life satisfaction, migration intentions, employability and success in life, as a result of active political engagement.

The study uses a unique data set and a novel methodological approach, sequence analysis. Occupational history calendars were used to capture quantitative information recording detailed work histories. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this innovative method has not been used before to measure the temporal effects of political engagement on employment pathways.

Purpose: Students’ transition from education to employment is influenced by factors like the length and calibre of their education, demography, labour market conditions, and the general state of the economy. Regardless of the economy, education systems should seek to ensure that students have the skills required for the labour market. This will help them better transition from school to work. This study examines the work skills that companies require for entry-level positions in Romania.

Need for Study: Previously, text analysis studies treated the job market only for the IT industry in Romania. To understand the demand-side opportunities and restrictions, assessing the employment opportunities for young people in the Romanian labour market is necessary.

Methodology: A text mining approach from 842 unstructured data of the existing job positions in October 2022 for fresh graduates or students is used in this chapter. The study uses data from LinkedIn job descriptions in the Romanian job market. The methodology involved is focused on text retrieval, text-pre-processing, word cloud analysis, network analysis, and topic modelling.

Findings: The empirical findings revealed that the most common words in job descriptions are experience, team, work, skills, development, knowledge, support, data, business, and software. The correlation network revealed that the most correlated pairs of words are gender–sexual–race–religion–origin–diversity–age–identity–orientation–colour–equal–marital.

Practical Implications: This study looked at the job market and used text analytics to extract a space of skill and qualification dimensions from job announcements relevant to the Romanian employment market instead of depending on subjective knowledge.

The aim of the research is to estimate the level of the early career gender wage gap in Russia, its evolution during the early stages of a career, gender segregation and discrimination among university graduates, and to identify factors which explain early career gender differences in pay. Special emphasis is placed on assessing the contribution of horizontal segregation (inequal gender distribution in fields of studies and industries of employment) to early-career gender inequality.

The study is based on a comprehensive and nationally representative survey of university graduates, carried out by Russian Federal State Statistics Service in 2016 (VTR Rosstat). The authors use Mincer OLS regressions for the analysis of the determinants of gender differences in pay. To explain the factors which form the gender gap, the authors use the Oaxaca-Blinder and Neumark gender gap decompositions, including detailed wage gap decompositions and decompositions by fields of study. For the analysis of differences in gender gap across wage distribution, quantile regressions and quantile decompositions based on recentered influence functions (RIFs) are used.

The study found significant gender differences in the early-career salaries of university graduates. Regression analysis confirms the presence of a 20% early-career gender wage gap. This gender wage gap is to a great extent can be explained by horizontal segregation: women are concentrated in fields of study and industries which are relatively low paid. More than half of the gender gap remains unexplained. The analysis of the evolution of the gender wage gap shows that it appears right after graduation and increases over time. A quantile decomposition reveals that, in low paid jobs, females experience less gender inequality than in better paid jobs.

The analysis has some important policy implications. Previously, gender equality policies were mainly related to the elimination of gender discrimination at work, including positive discrimination programs in a selection of candidates to job openings and programs of promotion; programs which ease women labour force participation through flexible jobs; programs of human capital accumulation, which implied gender equality in access to higher education and encouraged women to get higher education, which was especially relevant for many developing countries. The analysis of Russia, a country with gender equality in access to higher education, shows that the early career gender gap exists right after graduation, and the main explanatory factor is gender segregation by field of study and industry, in other words, the gender wage gap to a high extent is related to self-selection of women in low-paid fields of study. To address this, new policies related to gender inequality in choice of fields of studies are needed.

It has been frequently stated that gender inequality appears either due to inequality in access to higher education or after maternity leave. Using large nationally representative dataset on university graduates, we show that gender equality in education does not necessarily lead to gender equality in the labour market. Unlike many studies, we show that the gender gap in Russia appears not after maternity leave and due to marital decisions of women, but in the earliest stages of their career, right after graduation, due to horizontal segregation (selection of women in relatively low-paid fields of study and consequently industries).

The purpose of the current study was to examine university students' knowledge, confidence and experience of popular graduate employer selection tests.

A cross-sectional self-report survey was administered to gather a sufficient number of quantitative responses from undergraduate students. A total of 241 students completed the survey with most of them being psychology students from Swansea University. Four key variables were examined: (1) students' experience, (2) confidence and (3) knowledge of selection tests and (4) their desire for more information about selection tests as part of their degree. An audit of selection tests used by the Times Top 100 graduate employers was also conducted.

Students tended to misjudge how often selection tests were used by employers, and generally lacked experience with these tests. Students' confidence in completing each test varied as a function of the selection test; however, prior experience with these tests positively predicted confidence. Additionally, over 70% of students reported a desire for further information about selection tests as part of their degree.

These novel findings suggest that students could benefit from further information about selection tests as part of their degree programme which would be of benefit to both students and universities.

These findings are, to the authors knowledge, the first to explicitly assess second- and third-year undergraduate students' knowledge, experience and confidence with popular graduate employer selection tests and demonstrate that students would like more information about these tests on their programme.

This paper aims to identify the factors that can affect the overall graduate employability (OGE) of the private university graduates of Bangladesh. The authors carefully selected six such employable factors after searching the existing literature. Those six factors: academic performance (AP), technical skills (TS), communication skills (CS), personality (PE), leadership & motivational skills (LMS); and teamwork and problem solving skills (TPSS), had been considered as the independent variables while OGE had been considered as the single dependent variable.

The authors collected the primary data from a valid sample of 360 employers through a structured questionnaire working as the hiring managers. Those respondents were selected on a random basis. The authors used exploratory factor analysis to validate the items under those independent variables and structural equation modeling with AMOS (24) to test the hypothesized relationship between each independent variable and the dependent one.

After proper statistical analysis, the results revealed that AP, PE, CS and TPSS can positively and significantly influence the OGE of Bangladeshi graduates while LMS and TS have positive but insignificant influence over OGE.

Based on the findings, this paper can help scholars in further investigating the employability factors.

This explorative study will guide the fresh graduates in developing their required employability skills while assisting the employers in recruiting suitable candidates with the required skills and performance.

This is one of the few attempts that focused on the employability factors of private university graduates in Bangladesh. The authors are well confident that this empirical paper can shed some light on the fresh graduates’ employability and conducting further investigations on it.

The main aim of this paper is to establish a reasonable and scientific evaluation index system to assess the high quality and full employment (HQaFE).

This paper uses a novel Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) multi-criteria framework to evaluate the quality and quantity of employment, wherein the integrated weights of attributes are determined by the combined the Criteria Importance Through Inter-criteria Correlation (CRITIC) and entropy approaches.

Firstly, the gap in the Yangtze River Delta in employment quality is narrowing year by year; secondly, employment skills as well as employment supply and demand are the primary indicators that determine the HQaFE; finally, the evaluation scores are clearly hierarchical, in the order of Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui.

A scientific and reasonable evaluation index system is constructed. A novel CRITIC-entropy-TOPSIS evaluation is proposed to make the results more objective. Some policy recommendations that can promote the achievement of HQaFE are proposed.