Employability may be understood as a combination of competence, skills and psychological variables used to get and to keep a job. This survey presents a number of results obtained from the construction of an Employability Scale which brought together several psychological variables related to the subject. The sample comprised 628 university students, of both sexes, attending Administration, Engineering and Psychology courses in public and private institutions in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The scale consisted initially of 88 items related to 11 factors/variables, applied collectively on a Likert four-point scale. The results led to a redefinition of the scale, resulting in 57 items arranged in four factors/variables called efficacy of search; difficulty of search; optimism; responsibility/decision. The statistical values were sufficient to confirm its reliability and to recommend it for future research.
Employability; University students; Psychological variables
