Graduados y empresas: hacia una nueva relación

Often jobs are available, but the graduates do not fully satisfy the employers’ expectations. To delve into this problem our research explores the main drivers of employers’ satisfaction with undergraduates’ skills. It also addresses the possible causal relations among different aspects, namely tutors’ task, students’ behaviour, tutors’ perception about skills achievement and work relation from the perspective of a structural equation modelling technique (SEM). To do so we conducted a survey among last year undergrads who had been granted an internship and firms (students’ tutors). Factor analysis allowed us to determine the main skills under consideration and structural equation modelling let us analyse the existing relationships among the possible variables influencing satisfaction. When posing the research question, undergrads’ abilities as well as tutors’ task were hypothesized to be causal to the students’ performance, and that turns out to be one of the implications of our model. The results also reveal that tutors’ satisfaction is positively influenced by the students' level of skills and competencies, although it is not by their performance or attitude.