The Influence Of Peers’ Job-search Efforts And Self-perceived Job-search Progress On College Students’ Job-search Efforts

Affected by the repeated domestic epidemics and the economic downturn,the total employment market for college graduates is under pressure.The total number of fresh graduates of domestic colleges and universities in 2021 reached 9.09 million.In 2022,the number of fresh graduates from domestic colleges and universities will reach a record high,increasing to 10.76 million.The youth job market faces new challenges.The increasingly fierce competition results in the "involution" of employment.Taking this as the background,it is of practical significance to conduct research around College Students’ job-search in order to improve the students’ job-search effectiveness.Therefore,through combing and analyzing existing relevant theories and researches,this article takes job-seekers of fresh graduates as the research object,selects peers’ job-search efforts and self-perceived job-search progress as independent variables,psychological entitlement and chronic employment self-efficacy as the moderating variables,and College Students’ job-search efforts as dependent variable,aiming to explore the antecedent variables’ influence mechanism and boundary conditions of college graduates’ job-search efforts.Using the questionnaire survey method,the data of 207 fresh college graduate jobseekers in Southwest China is collected twice at an interval of 42 days.Taking into account the job-search stages,this study analyzes the impact of peers’ job-search efforts and self-perceived job-search progress on College Students’ job-search efforts through empirical research,and further discusses the regulatory role of psychological entitlement in the relationship between peers’ job-search efforts and College Students’ job-search efforts,and chronic employment self-efficacy in the relationship between self-perceived job-search progress and College Students’ job-search efforts.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)Peers’ job-search efforts,self-perceived job-search progress,chronic employment self-efficacy and College Students’ job-search efforts have significant gender differences.Psychological entitlement and chronic employment self-efficacy have significant differences in age.There are significant differences in self-perceived job-search progress and chronic employment self-efficacy in household annual income.(2)Peers’ job-search efforts have a significant positive impact on College Students’ own job-search efforts.Compared with the middle and late stages of job-search,peers’ job-search efforts in the early stage of job-search have a stronger impact on College Students’ own job-search efforts.(3)Self-perceived job-search progress has no significant impact on College Students’ job-search efforts.Compared with the early and middle stages of job-search,the study does not come to the conclusion that the impact of self-perceived job-search progress on College Students’ job-search efforts is stronger in the late stage of job-search.(4)Psychological entitlement moderates the relationship between peers’ job-search efforts and College Students’ own job-search efforts.When the level of psychological entitlement is high,the positive effect of peers’ job-search efforts on College Students’ own job-search efforts is weakened;conversely,the positive effect of peers’ job-search efforts on College Students’ own job-search efforts is enhanced accordingly.(5)Chronic employment self-efficacy moderates the relationship between self-perceived job-search progress and College Students’ job-search efforts.When the level of chronic employment self-efficacy is high,self-perceived job-search progress no longer has a significant effect on College Students’ job-search efforts;conversely,College Students’ job-search efforts will be significantly negatively affected by their perceived job-search progress.Based on the above conclusions,the study puts forward countermeasures and suggestions from the perspectives of job seekers,universities and families,aiming to use the rules of job-search to help college students job-seekers improve job-search efficiency,smoothly go through the job-search process and achieve employment.