College-Based Career Experiences as Determinants of IT Labor Market Entry: A Survival Analysis Model

Novice IT professionals are not well-endowed with experience and professional knowledge-attributes gained in the course of IT work-which could facilitate labor market outcomes such as entering the IT workforce immediately after completing college education. However, college-based career experiences such as job shadowing, mentorship, internships and cooperative education are valuable sources of human capital which can engender good future performance and productivity; and, thus, can often decide the employment fate of novice IT professionals. The current study draws on human capital theory and develop a set of hypotheses relating college-based career experiences to the likelihood of securing IT jobs. We test our hypotheses using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 cohort. We find that hands-on forms of college-based career experiences such internships and cooperative education increase the likelihood of securing IT jobs immediately after completing college. We do not find support for vicarious forms of college-based career experiences i.e. mentorship and job shadowing. We discuss the implications of our results on research and practice.