Pre-Employment Expectations Versus On-the-Job Experience (Thesis Proposal Sample)

Pre-Employment Expectations Versus On-the-job Experience and the Role of Social Media in These Discrepancies
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Abstract
Graduates usually have many expectations, some unrealistic, when graduating from college to join the labor market. The research questions for this paper include the ways in which pre-employment expectations among fresh graduates differ from the actual job experiences. Consequently, this paper identifies and analyzes different fresh graduates' pre-employment expectations to establish how they vary with their experiences in their first and subsequent jobs. Another research question is the role of social media in the discrepancies between pre-employment expectations and on-the-job experience. This research question involves analyzing existing literature to establish whether it contributes to the differences. The findings reveal that existing literature does not support Saudi graduates since its primary focus is on the US population and cultures, leaving a population gap. These studies seem to have focused on the US culture and under-researched this topic from the viewpoint of Arabic countries, especially Saudi Arabia. Thus, a population gap exists because Arab cultures are not adequately represented in existing evidence. This research contributes to the growing literature regarding interventions needed to help groups such as women in Saudi who face unique challenges.
Keywords: Pre-employment Expectations, On-the-Job Experience, Social Media, Fresh Graduates, Saudi Arabia
Pre-Employment Expectations Versus On-the-job Experience and the Role of Social Media in These Discrepancies
Introduction
Graduates usually have different expectations when joining the labor market after leaving college. Regardless of their levels, whether associate, bachelor's, or master's degrees, graduates usually experience notable variations between their pre-employment expectations and on-the-job experience. While graduates have many expectations, most of them remain unmet. According to Islam et al. (2015), fresh graduates have different expectations regarding organizational culture, leadership, communication, decision-making, teamwork, motivation, and development. Expectations about the corporate culture include working in an environment where employees care for one another and assistance is given to those facing personal problems (Islam et al., 2015). Leadership aspects include having supervisors who are role models and recognize one's efforts, while development attributes involve working in environments where management provides opportunities to add new skills (Islam et al., 2015). For example, 84% of graduates expect to find jobs in their fields of specialization, and 61% expect to obtain full-time