Determinants of Potential Employer Selection Decision of Final Year Management Undergraduates in Sri Lankan State Universities

Abstract

The purpose of this descriptive study is to examine the determinants of the selection of the first employment by final year management undergraduates in Sri Lankan state universities. Interest value, social value, economic value, development value and application value have been considered as the independent variables for the study. To investigate the potential employer selection decision of management undergraduates, 345 final year management undergraduate students from university of Sri Jayewardenepura, University of Colombo, University of Ruhuna and University of Sabaragamuwa were surveyed. The collected data is analyzed by using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS), whereby the demographic data are analyzed using descriptive statistics, while the hypotheses are tested by using correlation analysis and regression analysis. The research findings showed that four determinants, which are interest value, social value, development value and application value, have a significant positive relationship with potential employer selection decision, while the economic value has no positive significant relationship with the dependent variable. The results of this study are expected to aid corporate recruiters, so that more competent candidates can be attracted; university‟s management faculty and career advisers so that the recruiting schedules could be better tailored to appropriately match students‟ preferences; also, professional bodies in the formulation of strategies to achieve a desired number of managerial professionals.