balance as the critical factor that drives career expectations and perceptions. .... business fields such as accounting and information technology. A study.
CAREER EXPECTATIONS AND PERCEPTIONS OF PART-TIME MBA STUDENTS. Authors: Fish, Lynn A.1 Fish, Lauren A.2 Source: College Student Journal. Sep2010, Vol. 44 Issue 3, p706-719. 13p. 9 Charts. Document Type:
Article
Subject Terms: *MASTER of business administration degree *WORK-life balance programs *EMPLOYEE fringe benefits *QUALITY of work life *JOB hunting Geographic Terms:
UNITED States
NAICS/Industry Codes: 525120 Health and Welfare Funds 525190 Other Insurance Funds Abstract: In the U.S., part-time MBA students regard work/life balance as the critical factor that drives career expectations and perceptions. Job aspects and benefits/compensation closely follow in importance, while employee relations are valued less. Within work/life balance, students value job location, travel time, and telecommuting. Promotional opportunities and annual salary are critical factors in job aspects and benefits/compensation, respectively. Students expect to remain in their next position 2-4 years, and most will not take a job outside of their specialty. The majority expect at least semi-annual evaluations through conversations with their superiors, evaluations based upon their work's end product, and performance as the primary criteria for rewards and promotions. These results have important implications for recruiters, professors, and advisors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of College Student Journal is the property of Project Innovation, Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty
is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) Author Affiliations: 2University of Buffalo
1Canisius College
Full Text Word Count:
5061
ISSN:
0146-3934
Accession Number:
54016503
_____ Literature Review In the U.S., part-time MBA students regard work/life balance as the critical factor that drives career expectations and perceptions. Job aspects and benefits/compensation closely follow in importance, while employee relations are valued less. Within work/life balance, students value job location, travel time, and telecommuting. Promotional opportunities and annual salary are critical factors in job aspects and benefits/compensation, respectively. Students expect to remain in their next position 2-4 years, and most will not take a job outside of their specialty. The majority expect at least semi-annual evaluations through conversations with their superiors, evaluations based upon their work's end product, and performance as the primary criteria for rewards and promotions. These results have important implications for recruiters, professors, and advisors. Over the past few decades, several studies note a shift in students' work values and expectations compared to the generations before them (Loughlin & Barling, 2001; Ng & Burke, 2006; Smola & Sutton, 2002). For example, in the 1950's, American graduates focused on promotional opportunities, high salaries, and job security, while students in the 1960's focused on the meaning of life, and students of the 1970's and 1980's directed their careers towards individual achievement and reward. In the 1980's, students indicated their primary concerns for choosing
a career path were future earning potential, promotional opportunities and employer location (Parmley, Parmley & Wooton, 1987). In the 1990's, students' primary concerns for choosing a particular career path focused on promotion, challenge and responsibility, working conditions and the type of work (Devlin & Petersen, 1994). Students at the turn of the century appear to be following in the footsteps of their parents — or are they? With the changing global landscape, as well as changes in the traditional family norms in Western culture, future research is necessary to understand the career expectations of current students and the implications these student expectations have for organizations, recruiters and managers (Jarlstrom, 2000; Kirrane & Ryan, 2000; Rose, 2001; Ng& Burke, 2006). Several studies exist on student career expectations in relation to ( 1) choosing a career and company, ( 2) global and cultural issues, ( 3) gender issues, ( 4) differences for specific business functions, ( 5) recruitment, and ( 6) promotion, length of employment, ideal job acceptance, and the job search process. In the early 1990's in both the United States and New Zealand, with respect to their first position following college, students placed high priority on long-term career oriented attributes, such as promotion and self-development (Devlin & Peterson, 1994). Do today's students still place high value on long-term career oriented attributes? What are the current perceptions? As recently as 2008, in a study of first semester MBA students in a western U.S. University, students' primary attribute for choosing a career was an individual emphasis on self-development, specifically favoring career benefits and wealth as leading factors (Ng, Burke, and Fidsenbaum, 2008). Family and non-family issues in career selection were not predictors of career decisions. Similarly, in a large study of Canadian undergraduate business students, students who participated in a cooperative exchange with a business had more realistic work expectations and a better understanding of their own abilities (Ng & Burke, 2006). Cooperative students placed a greater emphasis on 'work' and 'people' dimensions of a firm and less on the
firm's reputation and benefits. For Canadian business students, good people to work with, reputation of the firm in the form of commitment to social responsibility, challenging work, and job security were critical factors of importance to students in obtaining their desired job and organizational attributes (Ng & Burke, 2006). Prior to today's recession, Ng and Burke (2006) suggest that given a shortage of skilled workers, students will be selecting the organizations they want to work for based on the kind of working conditions and flexibility employers can offer in terms of location, technology, workspace, and human resource policies. Similarly, in a large study of the United Kingdom's University senior year students' perception of organizational attributes, the five most important organizational attributes cited by students are companies that invest in their employees, care about their employees as individuals, have clear opportunities for promotion, daily work variety, and a dynamic forward-looking business approach (Terjesen, Vinnicombe & Freeman, 2007). Various studies have examined student career perceptions with respect to global and cultural issues. Gender difference in students' career aspirations and expectations were more important than ethnic difference in a study comparing black, Mexican American, and white college freshman (Arbona & Novy, 1991). Mexican American and white students followed traditional gender patterns, and career expectations resembled job distribution. Personality differences and career expectations of Finnish business students were insignificant but revealed that business students tend toward the technical competence end of the Myers-Briggs scale (Jarlstrom, 2000). As recently as 2006, the life goals among graduating high school seniors from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds differed but career expectations did not (Chang, Chen, Greenberger, Dooley, and Heckahusen, 2006). Country differences in several predictor variables are associated with a career choice in management, and suggest the
importance of national cultures and values in career choice and expectations (Ng et al., 2008). Studies have also explored the differences between men and women in career selection. In 1985, a study of differences between men and women college students at a private New England College found that women limited their career expectations due to sex role socialization issues (Hesse-Biber, 1985). By 2000, new entrants to the workforce were highly career-conscious and the persistence of sex-role stereotypes in relation to career priority still existed (Kirrane & Ryan, 2000). By 2007, in the United Kingdom, differences between men and women still existed on the importance of organizational attributes and the perceived extent of their presence (Terjesen et al., 2007). Women felt care about individual, daily work variety, friendly informal culture, commonalities amongst co-workers, degree skill utilization, stress-free working environment, internationally diverse mix of co-workers, and standardized work hours were important attributes. Men ranked a high salary as the critical attribute — above the others cited by women. In a different career path than business, physical therapy students reported that there is a difference between men and women with regard to career expectations, and men expected to be promoted quicker and to have a higher income in the first year of employment (Johnson, 2007). However, by 2008, in the United States, differences in factors affecting career choice between men and women in management were not evident (Ng et al., 2008). Several researchers have also sought student perceptions in specific business fields such as accounting and information technology. A study of first year accounting undergraduates in Singapore found that students considered satisfaction, job responsibilities, status and prestige, and good prospects as important factors in career development (Fatt, 1993). The study also revealed that experience and interpersonal skills were the most important individual qualities.
In Israel, accounting students' aspirations to work in the accounting field were found to decline from the first year of study through postgraduate years; however their desire to work in the business sector increased (Danziger & Eden, 2006). In the information technology field, personality traits' relationship with an undergraduate major in information technology was insignificant (Rose, 2001). Company recruiters seek the best 'match' for their company in terms of individual attributes in relation to company needs and culture. However, given the changing perceptions of today's students, the need for recruiters to modify their recruiting strategies exists (Jarlstrom, 2000). Researchers have assisted recruiters in this matter. For example, with the 'employer knowledge framework', applicants evaluate a firm based on the employer information regarding physical attributes of the employer (e.g. firm size, geographical location), job information (e.g. pay, benefits, promotional opportunities) and people information (that is, potential coworker information) (Cable & Turban, 2001). Students are more interested in working for firms with products or services that they can associate with than firms whose products or services they know little about, which can frame recruiter outreach strategies. Similarly, in the hospitality industry, hospitality students valued direct contact with the potential employer first and foremost in their career search (Sciarini & Woods, 1997). Other important factors to recruitment include references from faculty members, alumni, and other students; the company representative's personality and appearance, class guest lecturers; company participation in job fairs; and internships or co-ops (Sciarini & Woods, 1997). Based upon the Canadian study previously cited, current students will be selecting career paths based upon the working conditions, opportunities, and flexibility that employers can offer, and firms will need to re-evaluate their recruitment procedures to mirror
these expectations (Ng & Burke, 2006). Students' perceptions with respect to promotion, length of employment, students 'job search processes, ideal jobs, and professor involvement reveal different views into today's students. In the 21st century, students feel that promotional paths will typically involve lateral moves with rotation through several different jobs and geographic locations rather than the stereo-typical vertical promotions with long tenure at a particular firm (Gratton & Hope-Hailey, 1999). As for the length of expected employment in the first career position, the Canadian study of business students revealed a change in expectations from the 1950's traditional long-employment expectation (Ng & Burke, 2006). Specifically, of the 4100 plus Canadian business students who participated in the study, respondents indicated that they expected to stay with their first job for less than 2 years (17%), 3 to 5 years (38%), 6-10 years (8.5%), more than 10 years (14%), and 23% did not know. Forty-one percent of students preferred to find a place of lifetime employment, 30% wanted to work for more than one organization over the course of their career, and 29% did not know. As for students' job search processes, a shift away from traditional recruitment processes, such as career services and company brochures, to more contemporary processes such as the internet by today's students has occurred, and an understanding of how current students seek information, investigate and decide among job alternatives is needed (Ng & Burke, 2006). As for accepting a non-ideal job as a starting position, most Canadian business students indicated that they would be willing to accept less than their ideal job in order to start their careers (Ng & Burke, 2006). Only one study considered the college faculty and their perceptions of critical career factors for their students — the US and New Zealand study (Devlin & Peterson, 1994). Unfortunately, in the study U.S. professors appeared to be 'out-of-touch' with career expectations, particularly in comparison to their New Zealand counterparts. With these studies in mind, a gap exists in the current literature regarding graduate business student career perceptions and expectations as most studies have focused on high school students or undergraduate students. Thus, our research focuses on the questions of "What perceptions and expectations do current American MBA students have
regarding their career?" and "What employment considerations and evaluation preferences are important to today's MBA students?" Method This study represents a part of a larger study of college student perceptions versus employer perceptions regarding careers. The focus of this portion of the study is on the survey results from one of the three target audiences — a part-time, MBA program. (Note the other target audiences were undergraduate business students and a full-time MBA program.) We chose to separate the results to highlight the specific needs of each target audience to recruiters, advisors and professors. The survey has three major sections. Section 1 requires respondents to anonymously give general demographic information. Section 2 requires respondents to rank order four major categories of that influence career selection (Green-berg & Baron, 2008) — work/life balance, job aspects, benefits/compensation, and employee relations and then rank subcategories within each group. Lastly, in section 3, respondents were asked to address questions regarding employment considerations and evaluation preferences. In the fall 2008 semester, a survey (Figure 1) was distributed to two MBA classes (55 students) with various concentrations and undergraduate backgrounds at a local northeastern AACSB-accredited MBA program. The MBA program is an evening, part-time program. One of the classes surveyed was an entry-level course, while the other was a concentration course typically taken by students further in the program. While students voluntarily completed the survey, one hundred percent participation in both classes occurred. Results Part I — Demographics
Fifty-five students — 33 (60%) male and 22 (40%) female, completed the survey. Of the fifty-five students, only 3 (5.5%) were international students. (All 3 were males.) Only 2 (3.63%) students did not have
full-time employment. The average number of years of full-time work experience was 5.78 years with a range from 3 to 28 months. As shown in Table 1, the majority of respondents are marketing students (21.82%), global supply chain management (16.36%), no concentration (14.55%), finance (12.73%), or international business (10.91%).
Part II — Major Areas that Impact Upon Career Selection
As shown in Table 2, with respect to rank-order, 18 (32.73%) respondents ranked work/life balance as the top category; however, job aspects (17; 30.91 %) and benefits/compensation (17/%) were ranked as first by 17 respondents (30.91 %). Employee relations was clearly the lowest ranked (2; 3.64%) and had the highest fourth place ranking (44; 80%). Within Work/Life Balance, respondents rank-ordered job location, telecommuting/flex-place, travel time, amount and frequency, child care, and overtime amount, as shown in Table 3. In general, job location appeared to be the most critical aspect for the respondents (1.69), followed by travel expectations (2.62), telecommuting (2.79), overtime amount (3.49), and finally, child care (4.47). With respect to Job Aspects, students rank-ordered status/title, important responsibilities, variety of jobs, training, promotion opportunities, and work environment as shown in Table 4. Promotional opportunity (2.00) was the highest ranked sub-topic, followed by variety of jobs (3/19), important responsibilities (3.21), and training (3.88). Work environment (4.04) and status/title (4.37) were the lowest ranked sub-topics. With regard to Benefits/Compensation, annual salary (1.17) was overwhelmingly the respondents' highest priority as shown in Table 5. Insurance (2.65) and vacation time (3.32) were also noted as important, while profit sharing/stock options (4.16), reimbursement (4.4) and overtime compensation (5.12) were not as important.
With regard to employee relations, the lowest ranked major category, accessibility of superiors (1.89) was the highest sub-topic area, followed by feedback/evaluations (2.53), and teamwork (2.62) as shown in Table 6. Social events (3.96) and diversity (4.06) were the least critical of the sub-topics.
Part III: Preferences in Job Search and Potential Employers
As shown in Table 7, student expectations regarding their first or next position (following graduation) were solicited. Results indicate that students plan to stay at their first or next position. In general, students (34%) intend to stay in their next position an average of 3.28 (σ2 = 1.92 years, with 2-4 years as the mode. Ironically, most men (33.33%) plan on staying in their next position 8-10 years, while for women, this perception is not as strong (22.73%). Most women intend to stay in their next position 2-4 years. Most students responded that it was relatively important (43.64%) to start their next position in their desired specialty as shown in Table 8. Others felt it was somewhat important (23.64%), and yet others, indicated that it was very important (29.09%) to start in their desired specialty. Both men (78.79%) and women (72.73%) responded that they would not take a position outside of their desired specialty (as shown in Table 9). Student responses to evaluations indicated that they would like to be evaluated at least semi-annually (80%), by their superiors (46) through conversations instead of written evaluations, and evaluated on the end product. As for the frequency, 22 (40%) indicated that they would like to be evaluated semi-annually, another 22 (40%) indicated that they would like to be evaluated more than semi-annually, and only 11 (20%) indicated that annual reviews were preferred. As in keeping with most company practices, students expect the evaluator to be a superior (83.64%), but a few (14.55%) would prefer to be evaluated by their peers. The majority of students expect to have a conversation (78.18%) with their evaluator instead of a written (21.82%) evaluation. While only 2 (3.64%) students expected to be evaluated on all of their job requirements, the majority (49.09%) felt they should be evaluated
based upon the end product of their work. Others indicated analytical skills (27.27%) as critical to evaluation, while others indicated technical skills (10.91) or people-skills (9.09%). Most students felt that their rewards and promotions should be based upon performance (52.73 %). End product (30.91%) was also indicated by several students, while job potential was rarely indicated (12.73%), and only 1 student felt performance, end product, and potential were all important. As for their potential to get an interview coming out of school, most respondents (61.82%) felt it would be based upon previous experience and not recommendations (20%), GPA (14.55%) or extracurricular activities (3.64%). Discussion Universities and employers play an important role in shaping realistic career expectations for current students. The current research does not delineate part-time MBA students' perceptions and expectations for careers. Our research begins to fill this gap. For MBA students, work/life balance is the critical area that drives career expectations and perceptions. In our study, job aspects and benefits/compensation closely follow in importance to work/life balance, while employee relations are not as valuable to current students as MBA students. Our results mirror similar results found in the Canadian study of undergraduate business students (Ng and Burke, 2006) as the areas of location, technology, and human resource policies are related to the sub-topics in the work/life balance major area. This is an important result as our audience is American instead of Canadian, and graduate instead of undergraduate, business students. The Canadian study also cited the importance of cooperative experiences in 'grounding' the students expectations. As part-time, working students, our population can be thought of similarly. Canadian cooperative students placed a greater emphasis on work and people firm dimensions instead of reputation and benefits. While the MBA students emphasize work/life balance and job-aspects, they also value benefits/compensation — a contrasting feature to the Canadians. Perhaps the age and full-time work experience had an impact upon students' expectations and perceptions. Similar to the United Kingdom's senior year study, job duty variety, training, and promotion can be found in the job aspects major career choice, which closely followed work/life balance in order of importance to graduate students. Again, different populations — American graduate
versus British undergraduate — favor similar aspects in career choice. These results offer insight into the generalities of current part-time MBA students' future expectations. Perhaps the biggest failure in our analysis as presented here is that it does not include more sophisticated statistical analysis, such as the principle components varimax rotation procedure or even more sophisticated Likert scales in survey development. However, the major areas that impact upon career selection are similar to the results of several recent studies. We began this study with the question as to whether today's students are different from those of the past. Our results show that graduate students value job location, travel time and telecommuting as important areas to work/life balance, promotional opportunities as an overwhelming importance in job aspect, and annual salary as an overwhelming factor with respect to benefits/compensation. These are similar in some respects to those of the 1990's (Devlin & Petersen, 1994) — for example, promotion, but differ as work/life issues — job location, travel time and telecommuting — have become more important than in the past. Similar to prior generations to the 1990's, annual salary is again of importance in career choice. This may be a consequence of the time period in which the survey was distributed — during a global recession. With respect to questions related to their job search and potential employer expectations, our results are similar to other researchers in length at next position, but are different with respect to the job requirement to be within the students' specialty. As for the expected length of remaining at their next position, the majority of graduates expect to stay 2-4 years, which is slightly less than the Canadian undergraduate business students. For graduate students, significantly more men (33%) than women (22%) expect to be in their next position for 10 or more years. Perhaps this question is related to women's personal intentions regarding family life. Contrasting to the Canadian undergraduate business study where the majority of respondents indicated that they would take a job outside of
their ideal job (Ng & Burke, 2006), the majority of MBA students (76.4%) indicated that they would not be willing to take a starting position in an area outside of their specialty. Perhaps this result is due to the fact that these students already have full-time positions, and therefore, can be more selective or due to a difference in age and maturity between undergraduates and graduates. Our literature search did not reveal any other studies regarding graduate or undergraduate student expectations on future employers' practices for evaluation and promotion. Our results show that today's graduate students prefer to be evaluated at least semi-annually or more often, by their superiors instead of peers — the typical method for evaluation, and through conversations rather than written. The preference for conversational evaluation instead of written may actually hinder employees over their careers as superiors change — particularly when superiors change frequently. Thus, an interesting study may consider looking at this aspect with respect to length of employment at the current company. The majority of respondents (49.09%) feel they should be evaluated based upon the end product of their work and not technical, people or analytical skills. As for rewards and promotions, graduate students feel that performance is the overwhelming factor that should be considered. With respect to this study, recruiters, professors and advisors need to educate themselves on current graduate career expectations. Recruiters need to develop contemporary practices such as the internet and job fairs and develop realistic expectations during the interview process. Unfortunately, in the United States- New Zealand study, U.S. professors appeared to be 'out-of-touch' with career expectations, particularly in comparison to their New Zealand counterparts. Professors — particularly when in the role of advisor, and advisors should become more informed about current student values in order to become more effective in counseling students and in advising executives. Limitations and Future Studies
The current study does not include sophisticated statistical analysis due to the nature of the data collected through scales. In future surveys, more sophisticated scales for the four major areas may be tested through Likert scales and affirmative questions. Several interesting hypothesis exist and have yet to be tested. These include: 1. Do men and women differ in their expectations with respect to work/life balance, employee relations, job aspects and benefits/compensation? Our hypothesis is that men and women's expectations do not differ. 2. Is business function concentration a factor with respect to work/life balance, employee relations, job aspects and benefits/compensation? Our hypothesis is that business functional concentration does not have an effect upon the results. 3. Is work experience a factor with respect to work/life balance, employee relations, job aspects and benefits/compensation? Our hypothesis is that work experience is a factor in the results. 4. Another interesting hypothesis that our dataset does not allow for due to the low number of international respondents include: are there differences between domestic and international students in their perceptions regarding work/life balance, employee relations, job aspects and benefits/compensation? And are their differences in student perceptions and expectations regarding employment considerations and evaluation preferences? In conclusion, our study fills a gap in the current literature as graduate business students' — instead of undergraduate or high school students, are surveyed for the important factors in career selection. This study also represents a first in bridging the gap between graduate preferences in job search and potential employer practices. Much work remains in this field. Table 1. Concentrations of Graduate Students Concentration Marketing Global Supply Chain Management None Finance Intl Bus Accounting Operations
Total 12 9 8 7 6 4 2
% of Total 21.82 16.36 14.55 12.73 10.91 7.27 3.64
Human Resources 2 3.64 Business 2 3.64 Financial Services 1 1.82 MIS 1 1.82 Management 1 1.82 Grand Total 55 100.00 Table 2. Ranking of How Important Aspect is to Respondent: (Rank each bold section from first choice (1) to last choice (4) and then rank each aspect within each section.) Legend for Chart: A - Rank B - Work/Life Balance: # C - Work/Life Balance: % D - Employee Relations: # E - Employee Relations: % F - Job Aspects: # G - Job Aspects: % H - Benefits/Compensation: # I - Benefits/Compensation: % A B C D E F G H I 1 18 32.73 2 3.64 17 30.91 17 30.91 2 13 23.64 3 5.45 16 29.00 24 43.64 3 17 30.91 6 10.91 19 34.55 13 23.64 4 7 12.73 44 80.00 3 5.45 1 1.82 Table 3. Average Rank Order for Work/Life Balance: (Rank each bold section from first choice (1) to last choice (4) and then rank each aspect within each section.) Sub-Topic 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 Overall Average Job Location 1.59 1.31 2.00 1.86 1.69 Telecommuting/Flex-place 2.41 3.23 2.65 3.33 2.79 Travel Time/Amt/Freq 2.88 2.54 2.35 2.83 2.62 Child Care 4.47 4.23 4.47 5.00 4.47 Overtime Amount 3.59 4.08 3.53 1.83 3.49 Table 4. Average Rank Order for Job Aspects.: (Rank each bold section from first choice (1) to last choice (4) and then rank each aspect within each section.) Sub-Topic Status/Title Important Responsibilities Variety of Jobs Training
1.00 4.88 2.18 2.88 4.35
2.00 3.71 3.31 3.87 3.71
3.00 4.28 3.65 2.82 3.89
4.00 5.00 6.00 3.67 2.00
Overall Average 4.37 3.21 3.19 3.88
Promotion Opportunities 1.94 1.63 2.44 1.67 2.00 Work Environment 4.76 3.92 3.67 2.67 4.04 Table 5. Average Rank Order for Benefits/Compensation: (Rank each bold section from first choice (1) to last choice (4) and then rank each aspect within each section.) Sub-Topic 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 Overall Average Vacation Time 3.13 3.43 3.38 3.00 3.32 Reimbursement 4.27 4.61 4.08 6.00 4.40 Profit Sharing/Stock Options 3.60 4.27 4.54 5.00 4.16 Overtime Compensation 5.14 5.18 5.08 4.00 5.12 Insurance 3.25 2.32 2.62 1.00 2.65 Annual Salary 1.06 1.13 1.31 2.00 1.17 Table 6. Average Rank Order for Employee Relations: (Rank each bold section from first choice (1) to last choice (4) and then rank each aspect within each section.) Sub-Topic 1 2 Diversity 4.50 4.33 Social Events 3.50 3.33 Feedback/Evaluations 4.50 2.67 Accessibility of Superiors 2.50 1.33 Teamwork 2.50 2.50 Table 7. Length in First/Next Position Legend for Chart: A - # Years in Plan B - Females: # C - Females: % D - Males: # E - Males: % F - Grand Total: # G - Grand Total: % A B C 0-2 4 18.18 2-4 9 40.91 4-6 3 13.64 6-8 1 4.55 8-10 5 22.73 10+ 0 0.00 Total 22 100 % Table 8. How important specialty? Specialty
#
D 4 10 7 0 11 1 33 is it to
%
E 12.12 30.30 21.21 0.00 33.33 3.03 100 % you that
3 2.67 4.00 2.67 2.17 3.50
4 4.21 4.02 2.40 1.86 2.50
Overall Average 4.06 3.96 2.53 1.89 2.62
F G 8 14.55 19 34.55 10 18.18 1 1.82 16 29.09 1 1.82 55 100% you begin in your desired
Cumulative %
Not At All 2 3.64% 3.64 Relatively 24 43.64% 47.28 Somewhat 13 23.64% 70.92 Very 16 29.09% 100.00 Grand Total 55 100% Table 9. "Would you take a starting position if you were offered a job not in your desired specialty?" Legend for Chart: A - Start in Specialty B - Females: # C - Females: % D - Males: # E - Males: % F - Grand Total: ## G - Grand Total: #% A B C 0 = Yes 6 27.27 l=No 16 72.73 No response 0 0 References
D 6 26 1
E 18.18 78.79 3.03
F 12 42 1
G 21.82 76.36 1.82
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Sciarini, M. and Woods, R. (1997). Selecting the first job. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly. Aug. 1997, 38(4), 7681. Smola, K.W. and Sutton, CD. (2002). Generational differences: revisiting generational work values for the new millennium. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 23, 363-82. Rose, M.L. (2001). Personality types and information technology career expectations: A pilot study. Proceedings of the Academy of Educational Leadership, 6(1), 79-83. Terjesen, S., Vinnicombe, S. and Freeman, C. (2007). Attracting generation Y graduates: Organisational attributes, likelihood to apply and sex differences. Career Development International. 72(6), 504-522. ~~~~~~~~ By Lynn A. Fish, Professor Canisius College and Lauren A. Fish, JD-MBA Student University of Buffalo _____ Copyright of College Student Journal is the property of Project Innovation, Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.