The Impact of Career Motivation on Perceived Employability Mediated through the Career Crafting of Hospitality Students

Purpose: Convergence of the 4th industrial revolution and the COVID-19 pandemic introduced shifts and hurdles in the roles of employees within the hospitality sector. This research empirically explores the connections among career motivation, career crafting (CC), and the perceived employability (PE) of hospitality students amid challenging employment conditions. Research design, data, and methodology: This study analyzes a sample of 231 hospitality students, and hypotheses are analyzed with structural equation modeling using IBM’s SPSS Amos 20.0. Career motivation includes three sub-variables of career identity (CID), career insight (CIN), and career resilience (CRE), and the effects of each variable are examined. Results: There is a positive relationship between the CID, CIN, and CRE, and CC career motivation components, but not all components had a direct impact on PE. Furthermore, CC directly impacted PE positively, and fully mediated the relationships between PE and the CID, CIN, and CRE career motivation components. Conclusions: T he i mplications f rom t he f indings a re p resented f or u niversities w ith hospitality departments. Discussed is how to foster hospitality students’ career motivation and CC through adaptation to change in the hospitality business.