The Role of Faculty as a Knowledge Broker

This study examines the perceptions of students, recruiters, and faculty regarding the importance of various workplace attributes to students who are entering the job market. Furthermore, this study discusses the important role that faculty can play as a knowledge broker with both students and recruiters. Looking at students’ Top 10 attributes, we found there is a significant difference between students and faculty perceptions for (1) job satisfaction, (2) company culture, (3) company’s employee treatment, (4) training program, (5) company growth potential, and (6) company financial stability. In each case, the faculty underestimated the importance of these attributes to the students. Regarding (1) fit with goals and (2) current organization employees are satisfied/loyalty, both faculty and recruiters significantly underestimated the attributes’ importance to the students. Results indicate recruiters are more accurate with respect to what students look for in a job than are faculty. This study also begins some initial exploratory work on developing factors for the items used within this study. Specifically, the three samples were combined and exploratory factor analysis was conducted, resulting in a five-factor solution. Furthermore, this study provides faculty with a better understanding of what student job applicants are looking for in a job and also gives suggestions for helping the faculty become better able to serve as knowledge brokers between recruiters and students