New Article about Employability Development during Internships

Together with a team of Italian researchers, I published a new article about employability development during internships. In this study, we examined how graduates can develop their employability during a 1-year internship that bridges their education and their labor market entry. We found that more employable graduates tend to engage in job crafting - in this case: proactively adapting their internship activities so they fit them better - more often. Moreover, we found that job crafting can subsequently stimulate further employability development. However, this increase in employability only happened with the graduates experienced social support from their internship provider. The study thereby emphasizes how important it is that graduates and employers jointly contribute to employability development.

You can read the full article HERE (or find it under publications on this website).

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ABSTRACT

This study adopts a resource perspective to investigate the development of graduates’ resource-based employability across a 1-year internship. We examined factors referring to agency (job crafting in the form of crafting challenges and crafting resources) and context (organizational social socialization tactics) as mechanisms contributing to employability development during initial work experiences (internships). Data were collected in Italy from 316 master graduates in psychology at three time points. Longitudinal structural equation modeling results showed that baseline employability was positively associated with job crafting. However, job crafting was only significantly associated with employability at the end of the internship among those reporting high crafting resources and medium-to-high organizational social socialization tactics. Hence, beyond a focus on proactivity only, organizational support and opportunities to form social networks are essential to sustain interns’ employability development.

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