Job search strategies, attitudes to school and attributions about unemployment

Two-hundred and seventy British final-year school-leavers completed a questionnaire battery looking at attitudes to school, attributions for unemployment, job search strategies and the perceived characteristics of an ideal job. Six varimax-rotated factor analyses were performed on each part of the six part questionnaire. In accordance with similar studies in the area, each of the questionnaire sections yielded a predictable factor structure. Higher-order factor analysis showed five clear factors, which together accounted for nearly 45% of the variance. They were labelled: self-effort strategies, fatalistic, background, extrinsic and alienated. This showed that job search strategies, career advice, employment attributions and the perceived most and least desirable features of jobs are clearly interrelated. The complexity and interrelatedness of these cognitions about work suggest they may be difficult to change.