The Value of the Personal Skills of new Graduates in the Recruitment Process: a Conjoint Analysis Case Study in Lombardy

The ELECTUS multi-centre project seeks to strengthen the relationship between universities and companies. This could be achieved by gathering information about procedures for the entrepreneurs’ choice in the recruitment process of the new graduates for different job vacancies. Using a CAWI survey, 471 Lombardy companies with at least 15 employees were asked to manifest their preferences in choosing between hypothetical profiles of new graduates with different competencies from one other. In this work, the attention focuses on the "human resource assistant". This job position performs tasks supporting the recruitment process and the staff management. The statistical methodology here adopted is conjoint analysis, a technique used to detect consumers’ preference. In particular, a stratified conjoint analysis is applied using some layering factors extracted from socioeconomic features of the company. The use of two stratification factors allows potential differences evaluated when sub-samples about enterprise size and activity sectors are taken into account. Results of the analysis show difference in layering factors, this means that for different subsets, some competencies are more considered