Transition to Work: Effects of Preparedness and Goal Construction on Employment and Depressive Symptoms

Abstract

This study examines the mediating role of employment preparedness in improving employment, mental health, and construction of work-life goals among young vocational school graduates who participated in the School-to-Work effectiveness trial. The trial included a 1-week intervention program that focused on enhancing employment preparedness. In this trial, 416 graduates of secondary vocational institutes were randomized into a control and experimental group. All the study participants were assessed at baseline, immediately after the intervention, and 10 months later. The results showed that the School-to-Work intervention increased employment preparedness, which in turn increased employment at the 10-month follow-up. Furthermore, employment predicted work-life-related personal goals and lower financial strain, which in turn was associated with lower depressive symptoms. The implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 40 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.