An analysis of the impact of career and employment/entrepreneurship extracurricular programs on university students' career competency development: Focusing on career preparation behavior

Career preparation and decision-making are among the most critical tasks in an individual's life, achieved through diverse experiences, environments, and interactions with others. In particular, the career preparation behaviors of college students are recognized as essential to successfully accomplish the tasks of the career development stage, i.e., to gaining a deep understanding of oneself, to choose the best career alternative, and to enhance employability for a smooth entry into society. In this context, the purpose of this study is to empirically analyze the impact of extracurricular career and employment programs provided by universities on students' career preparation behaviors, using logistic regression models, OLS, and panel analysis on data from the 3rd to 7th waves of the KEEP II survey. The analysis results indicate that students who participate more frequently in career and employment services offered by universities have a higher probability of engaging in job-seeking activities and possess more job-seeking experiences. Secondly, regarding the effectiveness of individual programs, students who participated in programs directly related to employment — such as corporate and recruitment information sessions, job preparation programs, field training and internship programs, and employment-related clubs — showed a higher probability of engaging in job-seeking activities and had more job-seeking experiences compared to those who did not participate. Conversely, participation in entrepreneurship-related clubs was found to have a negative impact on the career preparation behaviors of university students. Through these analysis results, this study suggests that universities need to make more proactive efforts to increase the participation rates of current students in extracurricular career and employment programs, and that efforts to improve the quality of career and employment programs should also be pursued in parallel.