Employer-of-choice characteristics in the construction industry

Farid Sedighi and Martin Loosemore

Construction Management and Economics, 2012, vol. 30, issue 11, 941-950

Abstract: In many countries, ageing populations, skills shortages and increasing inter-sector labour competition has made graduate recruitment and retention a priority in the construction industry. Understanding what constitutes an employer-of-choice in the eyes of graduates is important in meeting this challenge. A survey of 160 undergraduates across 26 international universities concluded that the top three most important workplace characteristics for university students on construction courses are: positive work relationships, being able to learn on the job, and a workplace that is passionate about work. Distinct gender differences were exposed between preferences as were differences in preferences compared to the preferences of graduates in other industries. These findings contribute to our understanding of how students make choices about employers, what factors are important in making those decisions and how these factors vary between different graduate groups. They also contribute to our understanding of how to design better recruitment strategies to attract talent to the construction sector in an environment where demand is anticipated to exceed supply for some time ahead.

Date: 2012
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01446193.2012.694458 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:conmgt:v:30:y:2012:i:11:p:941-950

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RCME20

DOI: 10.1080/01446193.2012.694458

Access Statistics for this article

Construction Management and Economics is currently edited by Will Hughes

More articles in Construction Management and Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().