International student mobility: the key to securing the first job in a globalized world

Abstract

The internationalization of higher education is often seen as a strategy that better prepares students for employment in the increasingly globalized labor market. This paper empirically investigates whether business graduates who participate in International Student Mobility (ISM) programs experience a faster transition into the labor market after graduation. Using a unique database of 10 cohorts of business graduates from Belgium, our results show that students' participation in exchange programs such as Erasmus + significantly decrease the average number of months required to get a job after graduation. Our findings highlight the strategic value of ISM in disciplines like economics and management, where international experience is closely tied to career trajectories. They also underscore the added benefits for French-speaking students navigating multilingual environments, and for regions like Wallonia facing structural employment challenges. These insights support the continued promotion of mobility programs as tools for enhancing graduate employability in a globalized labor market.