Changes of associations with the university as an employer - opinions of potential young Polish employees

The article is a theoretical-empirical work in its character. It presents issues associated with the significance of associations with the university as an employer among employees representing the external labour market. In the theoretical part the method of cognitive-critical analysis of world literature on the subject from the area of image management, marketing and human resource management is used. What is emphasized on the basis of the results of the analysis is the key role of associations with the employer that the potential employees have in the process of building the image of an employer as an excellent workplace. It is also emphasized that deliberations from this area presented in literature on the subject don't refer to the university as an employer. Thus, we can say that there is a cognitive and research gap in this area. That's why this article is an attempt to achieve, among others, such goals as identification of the associations of young potential employees with the university as an employer, defining the changes taking place in them and grouping them. For the empirical part of the research the method of questionnaire survey (collecting primary data) and the method of quantitative analysis (including the analysis of average assessments and comparative analysis) were used. The obtained results show slight deterioration of associations with the university as an employer in 2018, compared to 2016. This is shown by, among others, growth of the values of average assessments in case of 5 negative associations and at the same time a noticeable drop of the values of average assessments in the group of positive associations