College-to-Workplace Transitions: Becoming a Freshman Again

Abstract

This chapter explores major issues encountered by many of the 1.5 million baccalaureate recipients each year (National Center for Educational Statistics 2006) who enter the workforce with inappropriate expectations, attitudes, job experiences, and levels of preparedness. Transition from college to a first full-time job is an exciting and much anticipated event, but it creates distress as well as eustress. Unlike the transition from high school to college, entry to the workplace represents a relatively clear demarcation from the past in one's identity, sense of responsibility, independence, intellectual activities, relationships , and lifestyle. Consequently, this transition is also a period of incredible uncertainties and insecurity. After introducing the topic with four contrasting approaches to reporting on transition stress, I summarize models of transition and psychosocial and cognitive development that serve as a framework for understanding organizational and related factors that contribute to stress. I conclude with recommendations for increasing workplace readiness. Experiencing College-to-Work Transition Case in Point Brad seemed to have everything going for him his senior year: a perfect 4.0 G.P.A, strong interpersonal skills, a reputation as a team-player well-liked by peers and teachers, and the luxury of not having to work part-time his last 2 years. But life changed drastically after graduation. In spite of working with a personnel service, his first interview was a disaster: Questioners asked how he would handle situations he had never been part of nor read in textbooks. After weeks of managing overwhelming self-doubts, carefully researching organizations, and completing several interviews, he was finally hired by a strategic sourcing organization to recruit employees for finance positions. Excited and confident, he expected his first week to be special. It was! Brad quickly learned he was in an environment that squelched self-expression and individuality, made minimal use of his college knowledge, and dictated what he would wear when he would eat and how he would answer his phone.