A STUDY ON GRADUATES MIS-MATCHING THEIR JOBS

Mini Project submitted for the partial fulfillment of II semester

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

In the Department of Management Studies

VIGNAN’S INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING FOR WOMEN

Submitted

By

P.LAKSHMI PRIYA

18NMIE0065
Under the Supervision of

MS.L.TEJASWINI

B.E, MBA
Assistant professor

Dr. PARDHA SARADHI MALLA

PhD
Associate professor

HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT

DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES

VIGNAN’S INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING FOR WOMEN VISAKHAPATNAM-530049
ANDHRA PRADESH, INDIA
2019
 DECLARATION

I P.LAKSHMI PRIYA here by declare that the mini project report and titled “A STUDY ON GRADUATES
MIS-MATCHING THEIR JOBS” submitted by me is a bonafide work done by me and is not submitted to
other university or published any time before.

This mini project work is in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of MBA-II semesters
is entirely based on my own study is being submitted for the first time has not be submitted to any other
university or institution for any degree or diploma.

Place: VISAKHAPATNAM

Date: Signature of the candidate:

 VIGNAN’S INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING FOR WOMEN

VISAKHAPATNAM

DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES

CERTIFICATE

Regd.No.18NM1E0065

This is to certify that the project work entitled “A STUDY ON GRADUATES MIS-
MATCHING THEIR JOBS” is being submitted by MS.P.LAKSHMI PRIYA. In a partial
fulfillment for the award of MBA-II semester has been carried out by her under my guidance and
supervision.

MS.L.TEJASWINI DR.PARDHA SARADHI MALLA

(Internal project guide) Head of the department

 CONTENTS

CHAPTER – I:

 INTRODCTION

 NEED FOR THE STUDY

 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

 METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY

 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

CHAPTER – II:

 THEORITICAL FRAME WORK

CHAPTER- III:

 DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

CHAPTER – IV:
 SUMMARY

 FINDINGS

 SUGGESTIONS

 CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chapter-I
 INTRODUCTION

Ever since independence, India has witnessed a progressive change in its education system which
is seldom quoted as the important contributors to its economic and social development. Much of
this progress especially in higher education is seen not only in public institutions but also in
private institutions. It was believed nearly for a century that education leads to a good job, but
the emerging gaps at the level of higher education are being seen as major constraints. In recent
decades the higher education sector has expanded rapidly, but the increase in the number of
graduates has not been matched by an increase in high-skilled jobs. Many graduates are finding
themselves working in jobs that would in previous generations have been filled by non-
graduates; such a mismatch is quoted as vertical mismatch due to over education. In some cases
mismatch is caused due to under education where an individual is having skills inferior to what is
required by job. It is also evident that another type of mismatch exists especially when the type
of education or skills that an individual is having is inappropriate for the job. However, in recent
decades an increase in overeducated workers rather than the undereducated workers in the job
market has been observed. Gone is the era when education-job mismatch was considered as a
temporary phenomenon, later economists and sociologists began considering this as a serious
concern with its significant socio-economic costs at individual, firm and national level.

These mismatched graduates face poorer prospects and lower earnings than their peers who
embark on careers that are a better fit for the knowledge and skills they have acquired through
three or four years of study. It suggests that traditional careers advice isn’t working.

Are students taking the wrong courses?

The problem isn’t necessarily that too many students are taking the wrong course. There is little
evidence that graduates are studying the “wrong” subjects, according to the UUK research, since
most are on courses that offer subject knowledge and employability skills that are very much in
demand.
Instead, students need better careers advice that will help them define their skills and attributes –
and understand how these match different career options. Students also need help finding out
which skills they’ll need to break into certain industries – particularly in sectors that aren’t good
at diversifying their recruitment, or when they have no family or social network of contacts to
call on for help and advice.

Politicians complain of a skills gap, but graduates face an “experience gap” – with many
employers preferring to recruit young people who have spent a couple of years in the workplace
rather than raw recruitments from university. Yet graduates have often picked up at university
many of the soft skills that employers are looking for in more experienced recruits – they just
don’t know it yet.
 Need for the Study

1. To know the drawback for the mismatching and find out the remides.

2. To find the reasons why graduates are not waiting until their educational related arrival.

3. To study the main reason of selecting the job which is not of their educational standards.

4. To analyse and give suggestions for the drawbacks.

 Objectives of the study

1) To study the type of, and the degree to which, job- education match/mismatch pertains
amongst working professionals of area in India.

2) To identify the possible reasons (both controllable and uncontrollable) behind the existence of
job-education mismatch.

3) To know the amount of potential employees associated with relatively lower levels of jobs.

4) To analysis the impact of job-education match/mismatch on employee morale.

 METHODOLOGY

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The data necessary for the current study has been collected both through primary and secondary
sources as explained below.

PRIMARY DATA:
The current study uses a survey method, and hence the questionnaire has been prepared,
which contains close-ended type of questions. Some responses are based on point scale to
indicate attitudinal aspects of employees and the remaining are simple multiple choice
questions.

SECONDARY DATA:
The data such as previous research, previous records, magazines, websites, books and articles
related to the current study have been referred and used as secondary data.

.
 Limitations of the study

1) The study has been conducted within the specified time period and hence change in opinion
of employees and relevant data in the subsequent period find no place in the current study.

2) Employees at times were reluctant to answer the questions accurately and hence the
possibility of leniency at employees.

3) Selective sample size may not be a true representative of individuals

4) It involves lot of complex human behavioral attributes which require a comprehensive

study over a period of time
 Frame work of the study

The sequence of the study was taken by the following order:

Chapter-I
This chapter deals the introduction to the study which describes about the satisfaction
level of a study on graduates mis-matching their jobs, a part which also describes need,
objectives, methodology, and limitation also discussed.

Chapter-II
This chapter deals with theoretical concepts of graduates mis-matching their jobs in
present era.

Chapter-III
This chapter elicits the opinion and view of respondents regarding graduates mis-
matching their jobs.

Chapter-IV
This chapter evaluates the whole report in summary, findings and suggestions.
Chapter -II
 Theoretical frame work

Job fit refers to the degree to which job characteristics that an individual worker performs and
the knowledge, skills, and capacities necessary for job performance correspond or are
appropriate Job fit is a sub-concept of the person-environment fit theory. According to the theory,
the higher the fitness of an individual’s job characteristics in the job environment is, the higher
the individual job performance. Specifically, the person-environment fit theory consists of
individual-organizational fit, individual-group fit, and individual-job fit. Among these, the
individual-job fit shows the highest relevance to job performance. In other words, job fit has been
discussed regarding how well individual characteristics correspond to job characteristics, which
has focused on the factors related to the job characteristics and factors related to those of job
seekers or workers in the labor market, who are an economically applicable workforce.
In the labor market, personal characteristics are generally explored in a variety of aspects,
including academic background, gender, age, major, job competence, and interest, and
psychological factors, such as aptitude and attitude. From the perspective of the job
characteristics theory, each different job characteristic is considered as the factors forming
personal attitude and awareness of job. Hackman and Oldham suggested five characteristics of
skill variety, job identity, job significance, autonomy, and feedback as a measure of job
characteristics. Identity refers to the degree to which the job is involved in the entire process
instead of just a part of the job. Significance is the degree to which the job influences members
both inside and outside the group. Autonomy refers to the degree to which an individual has
discretion when planning and performing the job, and feedback refers to the degree
to which an individual is aware of the information about the results of his or her job performance
A variety of evaluations on job characteristics have been developed, including the following
representative factors: DHOC (Dictionary of Holland Occupational Codes) is categorized as
RIASEC (R: Reality type, I: Investigative type, A: Art type, S: Social type, E: Enterprise type, C:
Custom type), based on the job environmental characteristic; and PCI (Position Classification
Inventory), which assigns codes according to how often such contents are applied to perform the
job in terms of the activities, skills, abilities, and personality characteristics required by the work
environment.

This job fit is also utilized for job mismatch, from the perspective of highlighting the discrepancy
between job characteristics and personal characteristics.

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY
When educational opportunities increased substantially (Trusty & Niles,2004), when many
organizations raised their educational qualifications for jobs (Kroch & Sjoblom, 1994), and when
the conceptualization of job performance expanded considerably to include more extra role
behaviors(Welbourne, Johnson, & Erez, 1998). In this study, we provide a quantitative
analysis of the relationship between education level and a wide range of in role and extra role
performance dimensions. For organizations, this study has relevance for at least three reasons.
First, if highly educated workers contribute only marginally more to organizational
Reasons for expecting specific relationships between education level and various job
performance dimensions and for expecting moderator effects in those relationships. In the
following section, we present the results of a meta-analysis examining these relationships.
Finally, in the concluding section, we discuss the implications of our findings for future research
and the management of an increasingly educated workforce.

This above survey form a large part of our findings, but we also conducted an extensive
literature review, and followed up with 70 interviews with select employers, education providers,
civil society groups and governments, most of which were working on innovative programs to
tackle the skills challenges they experienced. These interviews and case studies informed our
recommendations. We acknowledge, of course, that this approach is not definitive. For example,
while the sample sizes are large enough to be statistically significant, they are far from universal.
We did not, moreover, conduct accompanying qualitative research in the form of focus groups
and so forth. Still, this study is far more extensive than anything that has been done before, a
statement borne out by the insights the research uncovered.
The conceptualization of job performance has been expanded in recent years to include core task
behaviors, citizenship behaviors, and counterproductive behaviors. Core task performance refers
to the basic required duties of a particular job. Citizenship performance refers to those extra
behaviors engaged in by employees, over and above their core task requirements, which actively
promote and strengthen the organization’s effectiveness (e.g., helping coworkers; Hunt, 1996;
Organ, 1988). Counterproductive performance refers to voluntary behaviors that harm the well-
being of the organization. Rotundo and Sackett (2002) compared the relative importance of these
three groups of performance behaviors in managerial ratings of subordinates ‘Overall job
performance. They found that each of these three categories of performance behaviors
contributed to overall performance rating, with core task performance given the highest weight,
followed by counterproductive performance and citizenship performance. Consistent with these
findings, then, this study also focuses on three categories of performance behaviors, too.
Chapter-III
 Data Analysis and Interpretation

After collecting the requisite secondary data relevant for the purpose of this project work we
have collected primary data on the subject through a sample survey. Thus a suitable
questionnaire was designed to obtain the views/perceptions of respondents on relevant aspects.
A copy is placed at annexure.

Methodology:

In order to carry out the survey the random sampling method was adopted as the target was to
interview 30 graduates. The survey was conducted by meeting the respondents personally at their
convenience and choice. Accordingly most of the respondents felt comfortable to fill the
questionnaire. The questionnaires were distributed among the respondents and it was collected
then and there itself.

The Primary data was collected by meeting 30 graduates from various professions. The
respondents were identified on random basis in each department, as the availability of the
respondents was not constant at each level.

Questionnaire design:

The questionnaire was designed in such a way that the respondents understand easily.

The quantitative data was designed with multi category i.e. like yes, no; totally agree,
agree, cannot say, disagree, and totally disagree. The qualitative data was designed by
administering the open-ended questions with the ranking method so as to ascertain the quality
information from the survey findings.
 1. Is your educational qualification related to your job?

SL.NO. Response No.of Respondents Percentage

1 Yes 13 44%
2 No 17 56%
Total 30 100%

60

50

40

30
56

44
20

10

0
yes no

Interpretation:

From the above graph it is observed that out of 30 respondents 56% of respondents
qualifications are not related to their present job and remaining 44% of respondents
qualifications are related to job. Hence majority of respondents are not related to their job
 2. Are you satisfied with the present job?

SL.NO. Response No. of respondents Percentage

1 Strongly satisfied 9 30%
2 Satisfied 9 30%
3 Neutral 11 37%
4 Dissatisfied 1 3%
5 Strongly dissatisfied 0 0%
Total 30 100%

40

35

30

25

20

15

10

0
strongly satisfied satisfied neutral dissatisfied strongly dissatisfied

Interpretation:

From the above graph it is observed that out of 30 respondents 37% of respondents are
neutrally satisfied with the present job, 30% of respondents are strongly satisfied , 30% of
respondents are satisfied and remaining 3% are dissatisfied with the present job. Hence majority
of respondents are neutral with the present job.
 3. Is your educational knowledge useful in present job?

SL.NO. Response No. of respondents percentage

1 Yes 16 54%
2 No 14 46%
Total 30 100%

56

54

52

50

48

46

44

42
yes no

Interpretation:

From the above graph it is observed that out of 30 respondents 56% of respondents
educational knowledge is useful in present job, and remaining 44% of respondent’s educational
knowledge is not useful in present job. Hence maximum respondent’s educational knowledge is
useful in their current job.
4. Is job security a main reason, so individuals are choosing different jobs not related to
their qualification?

SL.NO. Response No. of Respondents Percentage

1 Yes 24 80%
2 No 6 20%
Total 30 100%

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0
yes no

Interpretation:
From the above graph it is observed that out of 30 respondents 80% of
respondents are choosing different jobs not related to their qualification for job security,
remaining 20% of respondents are not choosing jobs regarding to job security. Hence
maximum respondents are choosing different jobs not related to their qualification.
5. Does high levels of earnings/salaries influencing the individuals to different jobs
irrelevant to their education ?

SL.NO. Response No. of Respondents Percentage

1 Strongly agree 8 27%
2 Agree 11 37%
3 Neutral 7 23%
4 Disagree 3 10%
5 Strongly disagree 1 3%
Total 30 100%

40

35

30

25

20

15

10

0
strongly agree agree neutral disagree strongly disagree

Interpretation:
From the above graph it is observed that out of 30 respondents 37% of
respondents agree that most of individuals attract for high level of salaries, 27% of
respondents agree, 23% of respondents are neutral, 10% of respondents disagree with this
, and 3% of respondents strongly disagree that individuals attract for high earnings.
Hence majority members say that most individuals are choosing different jobs irrelevant
to their qualification for high level of salaries.
6. Does lack of job opportunities regarding to individuals qualification, they are attracted to
other jobs?

SL.NO. Response No. of Respondents Percentage

1 Yes 18 60%
2 No 12 40%
Total 30 100%

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0
yes no

Interpretation:
From the above graph it is observed that out of 30 respondents 60% of
respondents say yes to lack of job opportunities is main reason individuals attracted to
other jobs irrelevant to qualifications, remaining 40% say no to this. Hence maximum
graduates are facing lack of job opportunities and choosing different jobs.
7. The minimum education qualification is enough for few jobs; is this a main reason for
choosing any job not related to their qualifications?

SL.NO. Response No. of Respondents Percentage

1 Yes 16 54%
2 No 14 46%
Total 30 100%

56

54

52

50

48

46

44

42
yes no

Interpretation:
From the above graph it is observed that out of 30 respondents 54% of
respondents say yes to individuals are choosing different jobs as minimum qualification
is required for few jobs, remaining 46% of respondents are saying no to this. Hence
maximum respondents say more graduates are mismatching their jobs even they have
high qualification by choosing jobs with minimum qualifications.
8. Is an un related job more important than the educational qualification pursued ?

SL.NO. Response No. of Respondents Percentage

1 Yes 17 57%
2 No 13 43%
Total 30 100%

60% 57%

50%
43%
40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
yes no

Interpretation:
From the above graph it is observed that out of 30 respondents 57% of
respondents say yes to unrelated jobs are more important than educational qualification,
remaining 43% of respondents are saying educational qualification is more important
than unrelated jobs. Hence maximum respondents are giving more importance to
unrelated job.
Chapter-IV
 Findings

The analysis reveals significant differences for study fields in association with occupational
specificity of the disciplines. Only study-related work experience seems to be advantageous
to find a matching job. market uncertainties increase the probability of job mismatch. Job
safety is more important than a matching job.
The following are the findings of my study:-
1. Respondents are not related to their educational qualifications are 17 out of 30
graduates.
2. Respondents are neutral (satisfied and dissatisfied) with the present job are 11 out of
30 graduates.
3. Regarding to educational knowledge 16 graduates knowledge are useful in their
present job.
4. Out of 30 respondents 24 respondents say individuals are choosing different jobs not
related to their qualification with regarding to job security.
5. Totally 19 members agree that high level of salaries influencing the individuals to
different jobs irrelevant to their qualifications.
6. Regarding to 18 graduates lack of job opportunities in present obtained qualification,
sop the graduated are choosing different jobs.
7. Out of 30 respondents 16 respondents say that most of the graduates with higher
qualifications are choosing different jobs as minimum qualifications are enough for
few jobs.
8. In present study 17 respondents say yes that unrelated jobs are most important than
the educational qualification persuade in the present era to lead a life.
 Suggestions

1. Graduates need better careers advice that will help them to define their skills and
attributes.
2. Graduates also need help finding out which skills they will need to break into certain
industries.
3. To help graduated find the right jobs for them, lots of universities should experiment
with new ways to make their careers advice more accessible and meaningful.
4. Jobs related to particular qualifications must be in reachable to the graduated without
any lack. Job opportunities must be more.
5. Government should adopt transformative and innovative approaches in higher
educations.
 Summary

There is increasing evidence at the international level that a significant proportion of workers
are employed in jobs requiring less education than they have obtained. This phenomenon,
usually called over-education, over-qualification or skill underutilization -terms that we use
interchangeably -is a matter of great interest in current research. Whereas over-education is
routinely considered to be suboptimal, a consequence of a mismatch due to search or job
frictions, the increasing dispersion in ability and/or skills among equally-educated workers may
induce individuals to voluntarily acquire more qualifications than those they can productively
use in their jobs.
The potential role of over-education as a sign allying device has been frequently overlooked
in the literature. In the survey by Leuven and Oosterbeek (2011), we learn that "this source of
over investment in schooling has not been addressed in the over-education literature"; in the
survey by Hartog (2000), the sorting model is cited only in a footnote; and in Sloane (2003) and
McGuinnes (2006), the topic is not even mentioned. This low level of interest stems from the
general belief that over-education is a source of inefficiency and is a deviation from the rational
behavior of individuals, since over-education entails lower wages than earned by equally-
educated workers who are in properly-matched jobs.
Under a signalling approach, however, over-education may be inefficient at the social level,
but it may, in fact, stem from rational individual behaviour. To the extent that the expansion of
higher education has generated an increase in the number of university graduates, this has led to
greater heterogeneity in skills, and in the area of specialization among equally-educated workers
(Chevalier, 2003;Sloane, 2003). A number of arguments support the idea that over-education can
also be a voluntary decision of workers.
 Questionnaire

Name :

Gender : Male ( ) Female ( )

Age :

Profession : Student ( ) Business ( ) Service ( ) Employee ( ) Others ( )

1. Is your educational qualification related to your job?

a) Yes b) No

2. Are you satisfied with the present job?

a) Strongly satisfied b) satisfied c) neutral d)dissatisfied
e) Strongly dissatisfied

3. Is your educational knowledge useful in present job?

a) Yes b) No

4. Is job security a main reason, so individuals are choosing different jobs not related to
their qualification?
a) Yes b) No

5. Does high level of earnings/ salaries influencing the individuals to different jobs
irrelevant to education?
a) Strongly agree b) agree c) neutral d) disagree e) strongly disagree
 6. Does lack of job opportunities regarding to individual qualification they are attracted to
other jobs?
a) Yes b) No

7. The minimum educational qualification is enough for few jobs; Is this a main reason for
choosing any job not related to education qualification?
a) Yes b) No

8. Is an unrelated job more important than the educational qualification perused?

a) Yes b) No

 Conclusion

This report examines the impacts of education-job mismatches from their both forms and
dimension (vertical, horizontal and double mismatches) on the job satisfaction among university
graduates in India. To deal with the sample selection bias, the regression results show that
education-job mismatches adversely affect the job satisfaction with the strongest impact from a
double mismatch, followed by vertical and horizontal mismatches, despite several variables
related to individual attributes, fields of study, firm characteristics and implications of job
attributes are controlled for. This article contributes to the literature in several ways. Indeed, we
examine the case of a developing country that has just upgraded to a lower-middle income status
and consider the both forms of mismatches together with the possible sample selection bias. Too
little studies have analyzed the impacts of mismatches in developing countries, and only a little
of researches in developed countries have considered the horizontal form and the combination
effect of their both forms as well as the sample selection bias, owing to non-employed graduates,
when they examined the impacts of mismatches on individual outcomes in the labor market. Our
results suggest that India has to be more attentive on the expansion of its higher education sector.
Indeed, the negative impacts of educational mismatches on the graduates’ job satisfaction, may
generate counter-productive behaviors such as high rates of absenteeism and turnover that were
actually already observed and reported by many employers in India.
Thus, India should improve the quality in education and create programs allowing students
doing more internship to apply their theoretical knowledge in real practices. Evaluation on each
university performance should be conducted and results should be disseminated to public, so that
students can make better choice, and universities will compete more in terms of quality. Job
opportunities and economic rewards related to each study should be widely communicated so
that students can rely on those information to decide which program to pursue at higher
education.
 Bibliography

1. https://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201861410702/graduates-face-increasing-
mismatch-between-education-and-job
2. http://www.wpr.org/finding-job-fits-study-finds-mismatch-between-education-
job-qualification
3. Allen, J. and R. van der Velden (2001)- “Educational mismatches versus skill
mismatches: Effects on wages, job satisfaction, and on-the-job search”. Oxford
Economy paper.
4. Buchel, F. and A. Mertens (2004) - “Over education, under education, and the theory
of career mobility”. Applied Economics 36, 803–816.