DETERMINANTS OF STARTING EMPLOYMENT AND CAREER GROWTH EXPECTATIONS OF FINAL YEAR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS IN NAIROBI, KENYA
Segera Nyaboke Gertrude - Master of Business Administration (Human Resource Management Option), Kenyatta University, Kenya
Lucy Kavindah - Lecturer Department of Business Administration, School of Business, Kenyatta University, Kenya
ABSTRACT
In the last two decades, Kenya has experienced a massive growth and expansion in the education sector, and particularly higher education through the establishment of additional universities. This growth has translated in thousands of graduates joining the labour market from different institutions after studying for the different programs. At graduation, most of the graduates tend to be between 21 to 24 years old which is a very active and labour aggressive age. However while traditionally one was expected to get a job after graduating from college this seems not to be the case today. Secondly though the earlier generation of graduates would maintain the same employer probably until retirement or otherwise; we are experiencing a change in that the current fresh graduates (mostly millennials) have no qualms about hopping from one employer to another. The millennials also seem to expect their career growth to progress at a higher rate, as they hope to rise up the ranks of corporate ladder in a much shorter time than the previous generations did. This behavior seems to indicate that these young graduates may seem to have different expectations of their employers and employment environment as opposed to what the previous generations expected. This study, therefore, sought to determine the starting and career growth expectations of undergraduate final year students. The target population for this study was randomly selected undergraduate students in their final year of study at fifteen (15) randomly selected University Campuses located within Nairobi county, with self-administered questionnaires used as the data collection tool.26 final year students were expected to participate in each university making an overall sample size of 390 final year students. The quantitative data was processed and analyzed using SPSS, and analyzed using factor analysis method, logistic regression, frequency analysis and linear regression analysis. Qualitative data for open ended questions was analyzed using content analysis and presented in the form of summarized narrative. The study found that undergraduate finalists had unrealistic expectations of their first employment upon graduation, with most expecting starting salary of around 90,000 Kenya shillings and that factors like parental education, gender, and demography had a direct impact on their employment expectations. The recommendations of the study included encouraging parents to guide and mentor their children in career plans, learning institutions to include mentorship and employability skills training and for employers to provide for flexible working arrangements to encourage the retention of the millenials. For future research, the study recommends that a follow up should be made to find out the extent to which the employment expectations of the students was met.
