Employability Development during Internships: A Three-Wave Study on a Sample of Psychology Graduates in Italy

Abstract

This study adopts a resource perspective to investigate the development of graduates’ resource-based employability across a 1-year internship. We examined factors referring to agency (job crafting in the form of crafting challenges and crafting resources) and context (organizational social socialization tactics) as mechanisms contributing to employability development during initial work experiences (internships). Data were collected in Italy from 316 master graduates in psychology at three time points. Longitudinal structural equation modeling results showed that baseline employability was positively associated with job crafting. However, job crafting was only significantly associated with employability at the end of the internship among those reporting high crafting resources and medium-to-high organizational social socialization tactics. Hence, beyond a focus on proactivity only, organizational support and opportunities to form social networks are essential to sustain interns’ employability development.