The Mediating Roles of Core Self-Evaluation and Career Exploration in the Association Between Proactive Personality and Job Search Clarity.

Hongrui Zhu,Siqi Zhang,Hua Zhang,Aixian Tu

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.609050

Abstract

In recent years, university students’ employment has become an increasingly prominent problem worldwide. Improving the job search clarity of students is a great way to boost job-hunting success. Proactive personality may predict job search clarity through the mediating effects of core self-evaluation and career exploration. However, few studies have explored this relationship and the mediating roles of core self-evaluation and career exploration. To identify the relationship between a proactive personality and job search clarity and the mediating roles of core self-evaluation and career exploration, a cross-sectional survey was conducted. A total of 495 students majoring in nursing completed the questionnaire which consisted of the proactive personality scale, core self-evaluation scale, career exploration survey, and job search clarity scale. Correlation analyses and mediation analyses were conducted using SPSS 24.0 and AMOS 24.0 respectively. This study showed that students higher on the proactive personality scale were more likely to perform better on job search clarity. Core self-evaluation and career exploration have fully mediating effects on the relationship between a proactive personality and job search clarity. Therefore, interventions concentrated on cultivating proactive personality, improving core self-evaluation, and strengthening career exploration would be necessary for increasing job search clarity.

Highlights

In recent years, employment for university students has become an increasingly prominent problem worldwide and a hot topic for education research
These results demonstrated that a proactive personality was significantly related to core self-evaluations (r = 0.410, p < 0.01) and career exploration (r = 0.490, p < 0.01), which indicated that nursing undergraduates with a proactive personality tended to have higher levels of core self-evaluation and career exploring behaviors
Both core self-evaluation scores and career exploration scores were significantly correlated with job search clarity (r = 0.381 and 0.377, respectively; p < 0.01), which meant that students with higher scores on the core selfevaluation scale and career exploration scale had better job search clarity

Summary

Introduction

Employment for university students has become an increasingly prominent problem worldwide and a hot topic for education research. With the enrollment expansion of nursing students in the bachelor’s degree program, nursing undergraduates faced employment problems. Employment issues are important for the lives of millions of households and directly related to social stability. Previous studies have found that job search clarity is positively related to job-hunting behavior and job-hunting results. One of the great ways to solve the employment problem of university students is to improve students’ job search clarity to boost their job-hunting success.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion