Job Selection Criteria And Job Sector Preference of Economics Student: An Ordered Logit Model Analysis

This paper studies the job selection criteria of economics final year students in Universiti Utara Malaysia. Relatively, it is found that the long term career prospect is the most important criteria. The applicability of university degree studied has a low relative importance. This reflects the openness of economics students in choosing their first job. Using the estimated ordered logit models, the importance of job selection criteria is found to vary across job sector preferences. For instance, the education job sector is more concerned with job security and flexible working schedule. For business administration job sector, it is more concerned with long term career prospect, working environment, applicability of university degree studies and salary. Compared to male, female students are more concerned with working environment, .applicability ofuniversity degree studies andj ob security. Compared to Malay, the Chinese students are more concerned with opportunity to learn and less concerned about the applicability of degree obtained. Academic attainment is found to have no significant influence on the importance ofjob selection criteria