Factors Affecting Professional Job Mastery: Quality of Study or Work Experience?

For students and for society a core aspect of higher education is to prepare for future employment. Employability, however, goes beyond getting a job and this paper focuses on the quality of job performance, or job mastery. Employability is understood as a process and a product of learning both in higher education and in work life. The paper investigates job mastery as an indicator of employability and looks at different factors that may have an impact on the level of job mastery reported by professionals three years after graduation. Based on a survey among a cohort of students in professional education after three years in work, the paper analyses how job mastery is affected by learning outcomes during undergraduate study and further training and aspects of the workplace and the job.