ASSESSING THE PERSON-JOB FIT IN THE EUROPEAN UNION AVIATION INDUSTRIES USING A COMPETENCY GAP ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK

摘要

Over the last few decades, the European Union’s aviation industries have experienced adwindling of their long-standing capacity to attract and retain the most promising students , tothe benefit of other industries (such as automakers). A misalignment or gap between thecompetencies needed at work and those earned at school is just one of the several potentialcauses already identified. We argue that such a gap may be eroding the person-job fit, namely:the difference between the perceived applicant-job fit and the actual employee-job fit, thuscontributing to making these industries less attractive.The purpose of the research was to evaluate the person-job fit, along two dimensions:perceived applicant-job and actual employee-job fit in the European Union aviation sector.Competency was the component used to operationalize the measurement of the person-job fit. Acompetency gap assessment framework, which has already been tested in other researchcontexts, estimated the gaps between the competencies for adequately performing the job tasksand those acquired by higher education students. A total of 88 competencies, divided into fourdomains of activity (airlines, airports, air navigation service providers and manufacturers), weretaken into consideration.The methodological approach included two large-scale surveys: one of aviationemployees with the purpose of assessing the relevancy of the competencies, and another ofhigher-education students, with the purpose of assessing the respective level of proficiency.The results evidenced a high actual person-job fit but a low perceived person-job fit in theaeronautical or aerospace engineering programs, and a low actual person-job fit and perceivedperson-job fit in the remaining ones. Results suggest that students’ attraction to pursuing a careerin aviation may be negatively affected but, if starting out in a manufacturing industry, they arelikely to perform above their initial expectations.