Career Readiness, Career Search Efficacy and Contentment with Life Among Final Year Students; Role of Job Search Anxiety

Abstract

Final year university students face the uncertainty as finding a job has become a challenge due to increased unemployment and reduced job opportunities. Students cannot adapt to appropriate careers due to lack of appropriate skills and inefficacy to search and secure a good job which affects their wellbeing. The purpose of conducting this study was to determine the relationship and impact of career readiness and career search efficacy with contentment with life and to explore the mediating role of job search anxiety between career readiness, career search efficacy and contentment with life among final year students. Study sample comprised of 350 final year students taken from a private and a public university in Islamabad with 178 students from private and 172 from public university, there were 192 males and 158 females, there were 115 students from engineering, 100 students from management and 135 students were from social sciences and 148 students were previously involved in job search and 202 students were not involved in job search before. For assessment, career readiness scale (Dodd et al. 2021), career search efficacy scale (Solberg et al., 1994), job search anxiety scale (Britton et al., 2019) and riverside life satisfaction scale (Margolis et al., 2018) were used. It was hypothesized that there will be a positive relationship between career readiness, career search efficacy and contentment with life, it was also hypothesized that career readiness and career search efficacy will be predicting contentment with life, moreover, job search anxiety will be playing a mediating role between career readiness, career search efficacy and contentment with life. It was also hypothesized that males will score higher upon career readiness, career search efficacy and lower upon job search anxiety than females. There will also be difference upon career readiness, career search efficacy, job search anxiety and contentment among the private and government university students and that difference will be found upon career readiness, search efficacy and job search anxiety among the students from different study disciplines (social sciences, management sciences and engineering). Results from the study demonstrated a significant positive relationship between career readiness, career search efficacy and contentment with life and these positively predicted the contentment with life among final year students. Results also demonstrated a significant mediating role of job search anxiety between career readiness, career search efficacy and contentment with life. Significant gender differences were found with males scoring higher upon career readiness and career search efficacy and lower upon job search anxiety than females. Results showed no significant difference between students from public and private universities and results also revealed that engineering students significantly scored higher upon career readiness and career search efficacy than social sciences students. The study findings are of significant importance as it will contribute to literature body and will direct the universities, institutes and policy makers for higher education towards devising trainings and designing curriculum focused at making students ready for the future and career with respect to needs and demands of the modern times