University students’ career resources and the associations with perceived career control and decisional self-efficacy

Abstract

In recent years, to better face university paths, the first approaches to the labor market, and then the actual transition, university students are asked to have broader skills, such as the ability to network, the involve- ment in career-related issues, and the ability to explore the characteristics of occupations as much as per- sonal ones. The aim of this study is to confirm the psychometric properties of the Italian translation of the Career Resources Questionnaire (Hirschi et al., 2018) and the relationships between its components and two outcomes, students’ perceived career control and decisional self-efficacy, among 311 university students. The results highlight differences in perceived career resources based on scientific areas of study, satisfaction with studies and proactivity in attending courses. Furthermore, several components, such as career involvement and career confidence, were positively associated with perceived career control and decision-making self-ef- ficacy. The study aims to provide a multidimensional tool for exploring employability applied to university students, consequently favoring universities in their role of preparing students for the decoding of the labor market and of themselves as future workers.