A Descriptive Study of the Different Career Paths and Level of Job Satisfaction Behavioral Studies Graduates Experience on the Job

Abstract

What comes next after college is work; work in which we would spend half our lifetime after we are in our 20's and for most of us until we are in our 60's. The line or area of work we choose to take after college would be the career path we would be pursuing for ourselves. Choosing the right career and work at the beginning of ones career is important for us to be able to lead a satisfying life. When we are happy with what we do then we feel more contented with our life. Not only does choosing the right career during the start leads for a satisfying life it also allows us not to waste our time in pursuing something and investing our time into a career or a work that we do not really intend to pursue. This exploratory research aimed to describe the career paths of Behavioral Studies graduates and their level of job satisfaction on the job based on the variables from the Modified Mobley, GritTeth, Hand and Meglino Model of Employee turnover. A 40 item questionnaire was administered to Behavioral Studies graduates through mailing, e-mail or phone interview. A total of thirty respondents were gathered from both male and female respondents and from graduates across the years. According to the results of the study, nearly fifty percent of the respondents did not pursue their career interest prior to graduation. A large number of the respondents are in the area of Human Resources Development, Law, Marketing and Advertising. There are also those who are pursuing careers in different fields such at Information Management, Foreign Commercial Work and Retail Management. The results also showed that most respondents are generally satisfied with aspects of their career except for two variables which are compensation and benefit. It is also shown here that respondents who are satisfied with their work are not planning to shift while those who are dissatisfied and unsatisfied are planning to shift, resembling largely the Modified Mobley, Griffeth, Hand and Meglino Model of Employee Turnover. The results of the study showed that career shifting among the respondents occur when they are dissatisfied or lacked satisfaction with their current career. This lack of satisfaction happens because of a lack of direction in managing their careers.