Cluster analysis of work and job expectations of generation Z graduates

Abstract

This paper analyses the job and workplace expectations of young graduates of Generation Z. Based on a questionnaire survey of Hungarian graduate students and young graduates with only a short period of service but already present in the labour market, five types of expectations of young graduates were identified and characterised, which is one of the main contributions of the study. The direct result of the research is that slightly less than 20% of our sample of university students (contrary to general expectations) show typical Generation Z attitudes. This raises a number of additional questions, both for a future-oriented education system and for HR strategies for young people. A more general finding of the research is that, based on the sample, it appears that job attractiveness, i.e., the importance of each dimension, is not uniform but significantly different across individual characteristics and detected career path types. It follows that the level of job satisfaction cannot be captured by a single scale of measurement but may need to be diversified according to different career paths. The identification of the groups was based on principal component and cluster analysis, and ANOVA was applied for comparison.