Relationship Between Job Opportunity Recognition And Employment Outcome

How to achieve faster and more satisfactory employment is a major issue for individuals, which has also attracted great concerns by both scholars and practitioners. Why different employment results appear for different job-seekers from the aspect of individuals themselves? More and more scholars tried to from the answers from difference about what to do for job seekers during the job search process. Job search process starts to recognize appropriate job opportunities. Previous researches show that individuals’ knowledge, alert to opportunity and cognitive style will affect the job seekers’ perception of opportunity. Whether the differences on job opportunity recognition competence can affect the efficiency and satisfaction of looking for a job for job seekers? Then if the answer is yes, how the impact is? There are no existing researches to answer these question. Unlike the existing literatures which focused on the job search behaviors in the process of job-searching, this study attempts to analyze and explain the individual differences on the efficiency of looking for a job and quality of employment in view of job opportunity recognition competence, understanding the inducement of different employment results on the basis of the differences on the professional meta-competence. Therefore, this article adopts the method of empirical analysis to explore how job opportunity recognition ability impacts employment decision-making satisfaction and employment speed, and analyze how Person-Job fit (P-J fit) and job search behavior affect the relationship of job opportunity recognition competence on employment results.Using employment decision-making satisfaction and employment speed as employment outcomes, the research constructs a model describing how the job opportunity recognition competence affects individuals’ employment outcome and explore how educational background influences employment. The results of empirical study with a sample of 460 participants show that:(1) job opportunity recognition competence is positively associated with employment outcome (i.e., employment decision-making satisfaction and employment speed); (2) job opportunity recognition competence is positively associated with P-J fit; (3) P-J fit mediates the relationship between job opportunity recognition competence and employment decision-making satisfaction; (4) with the increase of job search behavior, the relationship between job opportunity recognition competence on P-J fit gets stronger. On the research results, this paper provides recommendations for job seekers’career striving and college career guidance.