Global vs local careers taxonomy for graduate employability: Through the lens of students’ typology and destination

Abstract

Career studies literature suggests that careers become more boundaryless and more global. Students, the agents of the choice of career, are not a homogeneous cohort anymore. We add to the discussion the students’ typology proposition for the career choice to further develop the graduate employability discourse. We make the first attempt to develop a student global vs local career taxonomy to contribute into understanding of graduate employability and career decision making. Our contribution offers a two-dimensional taxonomy, with one dimension being a type of student and another dimension being a career destination. The conceptual taxonomy is empirically tested with data from more than 400 business and economics students. We show that a global career choice would prevail above a local career choice for each of the student types. Our findings contribute into deeper understanding of career decision making and broadens our comprehension of the variety of global vs local careers for graduate employability. The study develops the future research agenda for career development researchers and multinational corporations’ (MNC) practitioners and practical agenda for teaching and learning in universities.