Almost Graduated, Close to Employment? Taking into Account the Characteristics of Companies Recruiting at a University Job Placement Office

In several areas worldwide, youth social involvement has experienced increased working vulnerability after the recession following the 2007-2008 crisis. In spite of a recent mild drop in unemployment youth, many graduates, both in developed and in developing countries, still find jobs whose quality falls below their expectations or experiment long-term unemployment. In this context, graduate employability has emerged as a key topic for Higher Education Institutions (HEI). So far, university system-level intervention, in this work focused on a specific Italian academic situation, has involved employers at distinct levels, in academic governance first and recently in the direct interplay of the transition from HE to the labour market, recruiting directly at university site. In fact, Italian universities have become intermediaries between their graduates and potential employers, according to the law 30/2003, which enabled Job Placement offices to play a key role in the interplay between graduates at the end of their university paths and companies in need of professionals. To this regard, we run a CAWI interview on the referred to registrations with the Portal of Almalaurea for recruitment and linkage, namely with the Job Placement Office of the University of Milano-Bicocca. Results allowed some insight in companies' structural characteristics as well as in some attitudes, in a prospective feedback to students and to their HEI from their counterparts, in the kaleidoscope of tertiary education.