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The post-pandemic crisis has reshaped work dynamics across industries, leading to a widespread reliance on technology for remote work and business continuity. Operations have shifted to the digital space, altering job requirements and creating new career opportunities. The expansion of the digital industry has generated numerous career choices. The purpose of this study is to determine the relationships between self-efficacy, social media, career outcome expectations and career choices among fresh graduates in Malaysia amid the pandemic crisis.

Research data were collected from a sample of 318 fresh graduates from both public and private universities in Malaysia. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the data in this study.

The empirical findings revealed significant correlations between self-efficacy, social media usage and career outcome expectations and the career choices of Malaysian fresh graduates.

The present study offers an empirical framework to explain career choices among fresh graduates in Malaysia during the pandemic crisis, based on a review of related literature on careers. This research contributes to the body of knowledge on career choices among Generation Z fresh graduates and provides practical implications for organizations and individual employees. It suggests developing relevant Human Resource Development (HRD) interventions to retain the young workforce within organizations.

This study enriches the existing literature on self-efficacy, social media and career outcome expectations in the context of a pandemic crisis. It offers a new interpretation of how individual and contextual factors impact career choices, shaping the career management attitudes of fresh graduates in the post-pandemic era. The empirical findings also give valuable insights into higher education institutions, organizations and government authorities in Malaysia to develop relevant interventions to assist undergraduate students in their career choice exploration.

The purpose of this paper, systematic literature review, is twofold: to identify the factors influencing graduate job choice and to propose a theoretical model that can be useful for future research.

Thematic analysis of the literature available till June 2020 has been reviewed using electronic databases such as ABI/INFORM Complete, EBSCO, Emerald Insight, ProQuest, SAGE Journals, Science Direct (Elsevier), Scopus, Springer Link, Taylor and Francis Online, Wiley Online Library.

Out of more than 5,000 studies, 14 studies were found addressing the issue of career choice among graduating students. The thematic analysis result explored five themes such as internal factors, external factors, interpersonal factors, institutional factors and socio-demographic factors that can be considered critical for graduates’ career choice decision. Details of the subthemes are also identified.

Implications for practitioners have been suggested from the internal factors, external factors, interpersonal factors, institutional factors and socio-demographic factors’ perspectives. The study result can be useful for conducting future research using quantitative data on graduate job choice.

This is the first attempt to present a comprehensive picture of past studies on graduate job choice and exploring the factors influencing graduate job choice.

The purpose of this article is to provide a selective review of literature on the career‐related decision‐making processes in terms of the transition from student to business start‐up, and the nature and influence of support and guidance.

Primarily, a critical review of a range of recently published literature (1995‐2005) addressing the theoretical and practical aspects of the journey from student to start‐up. The literature is divided into sections: the graduate labour market: a state of flux; Conceptual and definitional issues; Career choice and decision‐making; and Start‐up training and support.

The paper finds that despite an increasing body of theoretical and empirical literature on career choice in general and on the career choice to start‐up a business in the form of intention models, there remains a lack of in‐depth research on the stories, circumstances, contexts and complexities of graduates on their journey from student to business start‐up. A transition from entrepreneurial intentions to actual start‐up is often assumed but under‐researched in terms of career development and decision making processes. The nexus between training, support, intent and actual career choice to start‐up a business remains under‐investigated.

Given that careers are made in a changing and complex context, simple relationships should not be expected. Hence, rather than focusing solely on certain aspects of the start‐up process, research is needed that takes a more holistic approach.

The study highlights the need for research that does justice to the complexities of the decisions made in the process from student to start‐up and by implication public policy and practice in relation to formal intervention within this aspect of the graduate labour market.

The paper lays the basis for a more nuanced understanding of the journey from student to start‐up of value to both researchers and policy makers.

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 paper is to explore the factors that may be related to a career choice in the public vs the private sector in a developing African country.

Using a sample of graduate management students, the authors tested reward preferences and altruism, elements of public service motivation, on their generalizability to a developing country in Africa. The authors also examine the role of career attitudes, individual personality factors, and cultural values on a career choice in public service.

The authors find that not all the factors associated with the choice of sector (public or private) found in previous studies apply in the Botswana context.

Perry and Wise (1990) developed the concept of public service motivation to explain why individuals may be motivated to serve the public. However, two of the factors associated with public service, intrinsic motivation, and altruism, were not predictive of a career choice in the public sector in Botswana, and thus may limit its generalizability outside of western developed countries.

In Botswana and other developing economies, government jobs are considered to provide lucrative and stable employment, and attract educated citizens regardless of motivations. However, as the private-for-profit sector is emerging, these countries could soon be facing serious competition for top university students, and will need to develop a strategy for attracting the best talents to choose employment in the public sector over career options in the private sector.

The present study seeks to further the understanding on how individuals make a career choice between public vs private sector management in a developing country.

Mature graduates′ reasons for choosing degree courses and subsequent careers are examined, focusing on their destinations after graduation. The study is based on replies from 1,345 older graduates who completed full‐time degree courses in 1987 and 1989. The findings show that the prime motivator for choosing courses was interest in academic subjects, while the most important consideration in choosing a career was job satisfaction. Mature graduates are more inclined than younger colleagues to pursue postgraduate study and public sector employment. The majority of the respondents were satisfied with career progress to date and optimistic about future prospects. They indicated that they felt religious and voluntary organisations, education authorities and local government were more favourably disposed towards older candidates, while they gave public utilities, the media, financial and commercial organisations a low rating. Their recommendations included the abolition of age limits, specific mention of mature graduates in brochures, application forms amended to suit their needs and better selection interview training for interviewers.

This paper provides insights about how graduates' career patterns (i.e. academic entrepreneur, self-employed or paid employed) are influenced by entrepreneurial university ecosystems (i.e. incubators and entrepreneurship education programs).

By adopting Douglas and Shepherd's utility-maximising function, the influence of one entrepreneurial university ecosystem on graduates' career choices was tested using a sample of 11,512 graduates from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) in Mexico.

Our results show the critical role of entrepreneurial universities ecosystems in facilitating employability options as academic entrepreneurship for ITESM's graduates. The study shows some insights about how graduates' risk aversion and work effort are positively influenced by the university business incubator and entrepreneurship education programs, respectively.

Diverse implications for stakeholders have emerged from our results. These implications are associated with potential benefits of implementing programmes oriented to engage academic entrepreneurship within Latin American universities.

Entrepreneurial universities provide a range of employability alternatives for their students, such as to be self-employed, academic entrepreneurs or paid employees. In this scenario, entrepreneurial universities have configured entrepreneurial ecosystems (educational programmes, business incubators and other infrastructures) to support potential entrepreneurs (students, academics, staff and alumni). Despite the relevance of the environmental conditions on individuals' occupational choices, few studies have explored the role of the entrepreneurial university ecosystems on graduates' employability. In this vein, our study contributes to some academic discussions: (1) the role of context on career choice models (Ilouga et al., 2014; Sieger and Monsen, 2015), (2) the role of incubators and entrepreneurship education on fostering academic entrepreneurship on the graduates' community (Nabi et al., 2017; Good et al., 2019; Guerrero and Urbano, 2019a) and (3) the effectiveness of the entrepreneurial university ecosystems on graduates' employability (Herrera et al., 2018; Wright et al., 2017).

During the mid‐1980s a group of major retailing organizations came together to form the Consortium of British Retail Training Organizations (CORTCO) with the aim of addressing some collective concerns. One of these was that there did not appear to be enough, sufficiently qualified graduates applying for the available management posts within the retail industry. Research studies into undergraduates’ choice of careers had confirmed that: first, retail management was considered an unattractive career by many graduates; and, second, undergraduates’ knowledge of what a retail management career would involve was limited. In recent years there has been an increase in the number of retail management degrees and modules offered by UK universities and various types of promotional activities instigated by CORTCO. The demand for suitably qualified graduates to apply to the industry remains; the question is whether retail management is still a secondary choice of career for undergraduates. Using the results of two recent surveys of undergraduates and retailers, attempts to provide an update of the situation.

The purpose of this study is to examine how student agency influences career decision-making for doctoral students in biological sciences. The authors address the following questions: How do biological science graduate students navigate career indecision? And how does agency relate to their experiences with career indecision?

The authors analyzed interview data collected from 84 PhD biology graduate students. Researchers used a grounded theory approach. After open codes were developed and data were coded, code reports were generated, which were used to determine themes.

More than half of the sample had not committed to a career path, and undecided students were bifurcated into two categories: Uncommitted and Uncertain. Uncommitted graduate students demonstrated agency in their approach and were focused on exploration and development. Uncertain students demonstrated less agency, were more fearful and perceived less control and clarity about their options and strategies to pursue career goals.

Findings suggest some forms of indecision can be productive and offer institutional leaders guidance for increasing the efficacy of career development and exploration programming.

Research on doctoral student career decision-making is often quantitative and rarely explores the role of agency. This qualitative study focuses on the relationship between student agency and career indecision, which is an understudied aspect of career development.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the early career values and individual factors of objective career success among graduates from a top-tier French business school.

The authors conducted a quantitative analysis of 629 graduates classified in three job markets according to income: the traditional business market, the alternative market and the high-potential business market. The graduation dates span a period of 12 years before the 2008 Recession.

The findings suggest that membership of each job market is associated with distinct early career values (when choosing/leaving the first job). Moreover, the authors confirm that the presence of a mentor, international experience, job-hopping and gender, all affect objective career success.

The paper discusses implications for business career development and higher business education.

The originality of this study lies in the identification of the individual factors of objective career success among French business graduates and the links between objective career success and early career values.