D ETERMINANTS OF STUDENTS ’ CAREER ORIENTATION : THE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM VIETNAM

Career Orientation is a crucial step in the working process which enables students to familiarize themselves with their future careers. However, students have been professionally oriented only to a limited degree. Therefore, career competencies, career awareness, and job attitudes, which have an influential impact on professional orientation, will be researched in this essay


Introduction
In recent years, there has been an increase in the rate of university and college graduates who are out of employment or having jobs unsuited to their career orientation. Employer reviews demonstrated that after being recruited, the preponderance of newly graduated students are yet to accomplish tasks that require expertise, or university students fail to organize a schedule that allow them to deliver optimal performance at workplaces. They are lacking in professional ethics, business etiquettes, professional competence and tend to be discouraged in times of difficulties, sometimes even lack studiousness. There might be a host of causes leading to such circumstances, the most common of which is the negligence of vocational education in certain high schools, universities and colleges, which results in unsuitable selection of majors or courses. As a consequence, they study perfunctorily and unsystematically. This can also be seen in Foreign Trade University in Ho Chi Minh City, when a number of interviewed students reported that they are yet to discover their true vocation. Consequently, career orientation at an early stage for university students, as well as the provision of technical skills and knowledge for each occupation, especially for Foreign Trade University, are vitally necessary in the context of integration and globalization of the world economy in the contemporary era.

Methodology
The research methodology used in this research is the qualitative method, specifically qualitative method implemented with focus group interviews and massive survey on the career orientation of students from a university.
The research conducted in-depth interviews on 13 members of the Youth Union and Youth Association representing students from sophomores to seniors. They are energetic, with good knowledge and skills, enthusiastically participate in school and social activities, and have strong connections with families, schools, and businesses. They pay attention to issues relating to their employment possibilities and have a major impact on the career orientation of various members in classes. Besides, students who are members of the Youth Union and Youth Association also interact and cooperate with other students on a regular basis. Therefore, they have a better understanding of the realities of university students in the training process. Members of the Youth Union and Youth Association are those who demonstrate dynamism and enthusiasm in work. This is a qualitative research whose main aim is to devise questionnaires appropriately so as to facilitate and ensure the quality of the following steps of the research.
The aim of qualitative research is to gain insight into the observable variables in order to measure the components of the career orientation model of university students. The results of this research help acquire basic information of career orientation of university students and build a scale of measurement for variables in the research model. This scale of measurement is created based on existing scales in developed countries. Nevertheless, due to differences in cultures and levels of development, existing scales in developed countries are not applicable to trends in career orientation of Vietnamese university students. As a consequence, they need to be revised and supplemented so as to be suitable for the conditions of universities and colleges in Vietnam. Scales of measurement are revised and supplemented based on qualitative methods with focus group interviews.
So as for the scale of measurement to be close to reality, the research team have used focus group interviews, with the objects being 13 members of Youth Union and Youth Association. Objects are selected using non-probability sampling methods to allow for diversity in genders and years of education so as to minimize distortion. The following 3. 1 table illustrates several characteristics of  samples in focus group interviews. 13 university students are divided into 2 groups for 2 rounds of interviews, each of which is conducted by 3 (out of 5) authors. The leader of the research team holds both interviews to ensure that the contents of the interview are still strongly focused. One of two remaining authors is in charge of stenography, while the other is responsible for reporting on the attitudes of the participants. Each interview section lasts 90 minutes under the active feedback of the participants. The outline of the interview is presented in the addendum. The frequently used questions aiming to stimulate discussion, go into details so as to obtain information from interviewees are "Do you agree with this statement? Why? What else? What about you? Do you have other opinions?" The results of the focus group interview help acquire a basic/fundamental understanding of the career orientation of university students and determine the scale of measurement for the research.
Through two interview sections, the group of authors have resolved the two following issues in their research: (1) Acquire basic information of career orientation of university students (2) Revise and build an official scale of measurements for their research to conduct surveys on a large scale. This result is the combination of the scales of measurement of both domestic and foreign authors related to the topic of research, at the same time taking the results of the focus group interview and the working process of the research team. This result has helped create a scale of measurement for 4 concepts used during the research model regarding career orientation of university students, including: career orientation, career awareness orientation, job attitude orientation, and career competencies orientation. Schein (1996) divided individual career orientation into eight distinct categories, including: Technical skills or functions; Comprehensive managerial competencies; Autonomy/ Independence; Security/ Stability; Corporation innovation; Services/Contributive justice; Lifestyles; Pure challenges.

Career orientation
Meanwhile, according to Agarwala (2008), career orientation is categorized into two main groups: Protean career orientation with employers; Conventional organizational orientation. With an aim to help students succeed professionally, many research projects on vocational training have been conducted. The majority of research on vocational programmes for university students in various nations indicate that such programmes are influenced by three main factors: (1) professional skills (2)

Career competencies
Carole Kanchier (quoted from Gregory, 2004) defined career competencies as the skills can be utilized in multiple careers and contexts. Meanwhile, according to Overtoom (2000, quoted from Heimler, Rosenberg và Elsa-Sofia Morote, 2012), career competencies are the skills and abilities required to be successful at all levels of employment within the working environment of the technological epoch.

Career awareness
Perspectives regarding career awareness take various forms. Nevertheless, they can be separated into two main views. The first view analyzes career awareness in terms of personal awareness relating to preferences, capabilities, and goals towards employment. The second one considers career awareness in a more multidisciplinary approach, involving personal standpoints of job seekers as well as viewpoints on a societal level. By such way, career awareness of university students includes awareness of not only individual suitability, but also professional requirements and their societal values (Phạm Đình Duyên, 2014, Nguyen Dinh Xuan and Tran Thi Minh Duc, 1996)

Job attitudes
According to Stoeber (2016), job attitude encompasses three aspects: workplace adaptability, coping with unforeseen circumstances, adapting to ever-changing working environments, and viewing changes as a means to success; optimistism, demonstrating the maintenance of sanguine hopes and expectations that any situation can arise even in the best-case scenarios; and awareness, reflecting the understanding of labor market. Tran Thi Phung Ha (2014) also opined that job attitude is one of the crucial contributory factors to career orientation as it develops personality traits, expresses emotional states, and the level of passion for workplace activities. An optimistic attitude will positively influence work morales, responsibility, and work commitment, as well as preserving the quality standards.

Overseas studies
Career orientation is of considerable value in reality, as it not only enables graduates to enhance their employment opportunities, but it also boosts employees' performance. (Aryee and Chong, 1991). As a result, many universities around the globe have given focus to vocational guidance for their students when they are still in universities. A typical example is Murcia, a Spanish university, which believes that vocational guidance in universities will lead students to appropriate career choices, and also supply students with further information and necessary skills to swiftly adapt to the competitive labor market. In Malaysia, vocational guidance enables students to attain academic goals, heighten career awareness, and improve the rates of course completion, therefore develop their academic and professional competence. (Salleh, 2010).
Due to the fact that vocational training can bring various tangible benefits in terms of employment and quality improvement for students, multiple schools worldwide have identified the reasons affecting career orientation so as to develop pragmatic approaches. Regarding factors influencing career orientation, Sultana (2008) opines that, vocational training activities in Middle Eastern and Northern African countries are affected by economic (poverty in rural areas, employer attractiveness in public sectors, etc), cultural, societal (the roles of family, the orientation of societies), and educational factors. Therefore, these two authors propose that in order to produce tangible results, it is advisable to improve the quality of occupational information and the proficiency of vocational guides, to integrate more vocational information into school curriculums, and promote career guidance in the direction of lifelong career development. In Singapore, career guidance is delivered through 3 stages: (1) provide information (2) integrate career orientation into school curriculums (3) connect career orientation to information technology and the shift of teachers' roles from 'experts' to 'facilitators' (Tan, 2002). The approach in which vocational training is included in school curriculums is also advocated by many researchers. In addition, the role of career orientation is also strengthened in Chinese universities through guiding students to select main subjects appropriately through a model called "five aspects in one", including: (1) select the main subjects (2) devise plans for work (3) boost career prospects, (4) develop area of expertise, and (5) successfully land jobs. Furthermore, career guidance at schools necessitates collaborative efforts from many members: lecturers, consultants, students themselves, and also alumni. (Hao, 2015)

Domestic studies
A research by Tran Thi Phung Ha (2014) on the career orientation of students from Can Tho University has indicated the perspectives of university students towards their employment and career orientation in the future. Results obtained from questionnaires distributed to 170 students in 5 faculties of Can Tho University, together with in-depth interviews, demonstrated that they are perturbed by the prospects of unemployment, and that a large proportion of them have already implemented strategies to improve job attitudes and professional competence for themselves. The results also indicated that students of different genders, majors, nationalities, and backgrounds have different organizational awareness, attitudes, and technical abilities. In this research, the authors pointed out that career orientation is strongly influenced by internal and external factors. External factors involve the impact of families, schools, and societies, whereas internal factors involve personal standpoints in career selection. These factors are inextricably intertwined, affecting and affected by one another. Preliminary analysis of the characteristics of the interviews showed the interconnections between the hometowns/ backgrounds (urban/rural areas) of students and the majors they selected. Similarly, hometowns and family financial situations are strongly interrelated. While only 3.6% of university students from urban areas reported to encounter financial difficulties, the figure is 13.3% for their rural counterparts. Some detailed results: First is the subjective factors impacting the careers of university students. Interpreted results indicated that 82 out of 162 (approximately 50.6%) students still wish to be employed in public sectors. Meanwhile, 38% are evenly distributed to private and foreign enterprises. Only 8.6% of students want to launch their own companies and the very few remaining want to work on non-governmental projects. As regards career selection, analyzed results demonstrated that roughly 76% of university students opined that they decided on their majors by themselves, while just around 10% of them were influenced by families, and very few of them were affected by friends, teachers, etc. Fortunately, the preponderance of them (74.7%) were satisfied with their chosen majors. Moreover, opinions considering the utility of career orientation are also correlated to family socio-economic backgrounds. Whereas 93.4% of students from disadvantaged backgrounds deemed career orientation useful, only 72% of their privileged counterparts agreed so. On the contrary, 13% of students from advantaged backgrounds opined that career orientation brings no benefit whatsoever.
Second is career orientation of university students themselves, by identifying the fields and areas that attract students in terms of employment. Research showed that the number of university students wishing to be employed in cities constitutes the highest proportion (46%), followed by the figures for rural areas (22%), and anywhere (20%). Meanwhile, the lowest percentage of students are willing to work in isolated regions (7%). The intention to follow occupations that are directly related to students' specialties are interconnected to not only their years of education, but also their family backgrounds.
Third is the enhancement of skills. Among all skills, university students rank their communicational skills and self-study skills as the most developed, at 3.59 and 3.56 respectively, while language skills and technology skills as the least developed, at 3.24 and 3.32 in that order. With regard to presentation skills, male students rank theirs at 3.55 (above average), whereas the figure for students from privileged backgrounds is 3.43 (below average).
Survey on career orientation launched by OCD Management Consulting Cooperation in the IV quarter in 2014 on 1800 university students from multiple universities in Ha Noi City provides readers with the information on career orientation of students in the contemporary society, as well as students' evaluation of the suitability of the training programmes of universities with regard to employers' requirements. The results read as followed: First is students' desire after graduating. The rates of students who wish to further their education and those who want to join the labor force are varying according to majors. In engineering and economics, 12% and 9% of students wish to continue studying respectively, while 88% and 91% of them want to find jobs. 74% of students in engineering wish to follow occupations that are directly related to their specialties, whereas up to 97% of economics students wish so. There reported to be similarity in the trend of the desired areas of work between two majors: 47% of them wish to work for state agencies, 26% for private enterprises/organizations, 21% for foreign enterprises/organizations, and 6% for non-governmental organizations. As regards the importance of the factors influencing job selection, salary accounts for 47%, followed by gains in experience, at 46%, and popularity of companies, at 38%.
Second is the evaluation of vocational training from schools. Up to 87% of university students deem vocational courses at schools useful. Among essential skills to land jobs, communication skill is chosen by 74% of students, followed by problem-solving skill, team work skill, and presentation skill, at 67%, 65%, and 57% in that order. In evaluation of the suitability of academic skills for employment, 67% of students are satisfied, while 77% of them opined that training at schools is interconnected to business needs.
Third is the assessment of employability. It is reported that 48% believed that their chances at employment are fair, while factors leading to unfairness in job seeking are finance, social circles, supply exceeding demand, and failure to meet the requirements of employers. With regard to the means of finding jobs, 74% of students rely on the internet, followed by social connections, recruiting programmes at schools, and career fairs, at 46%, 39%, and 31% respectively.
A research by Bui Ha Phuong (2015) on career orientation of students majoring in Library and Information Science in University of Social Sciences and Humanities analyzed the survey results conducted on 49 seniors to offer insights into students' awareness from starting school until graduating. Results suggest that the selection of jobs and occupations prior to choices of major after graduating of students depends on various factors, including: objective factors (passions, preferences, individual abilities, etc) and subjective factors from families, friends, teachers, academic environments, and social environments.
Researching on methods of orientation towards Teacher Education for students in universities and colleges, Pham Dinh Duyen (2014) pointed out that orientation towards Teacher Education performs a significant role and has a profound impact on the quality of teacher training. Nonetheless, at many universities and colleges nowadays, not many students majoring in teacher education have developed awareness of their career values. According to research, 9.5% of students pursued Teacher Education because they want to lead a peaceful life and do not want to undertake burdensome tasks, while 29.2% of them do not want to compete in market mechanisms, 25% due to low entrance scores, and 100% due to the exemption from tuition fees. This shows that there have not been many students who acknowledge the value of Teacher Education. As a consequence, during the training process, these students are yet to be self-disciplined, proactive in studying and developing technical skills, or committed to their chosen majors, which can be illustrated through detailed figures: 26.6% of them are not interested in Teacher Education, 12.6% of them have not been active in their studies or career training. 78% fail to do preparation and practice delivering lessons frequently, and 20.7% would not select Teacher Education if given the opportunity to choose again.

Research model
Research model is built based on the theoretical framework analyzed above. The following model includes 4 factors: career competencies, career awareness, job attitudes, and career orientation.

Career awareness
Career awareness of university students in this research can be understood as the comprehension of the career values, and the understanding of the characteristics, requirements, and benefits brought to individuals by that career. When creating questionnaires with interviewed and formulated questions beforehand through the first and second interview sections, as well as the discussion process of the research team, it is obvious that the perceptions of students of career selection vary significantly. Many students opine that career selection should be based on the suitability in terms of preferences, while others believe that a high salary is given the absolute priority in the future career, and the working environment also plays an influential role. In the survey on students' perceptions of career selection, the proportions of choices are listed in table 2: Judging from the results from the survey, based on the criteria as shown in table 4.1 to select career, it can be seen that the largest proportion of university students prioritize high salaries when choosing occupation (54.8%), followed by preferences (43.4%), and good working environment (46.5%). No noticeable differences can be seen in the career selection between freshmen and seniors.
When analyzing the correlation, results of the research indicate that the criteria including high salary, advancement opportunity, suitability in terms of preferences, family orientation, and getting a job easily are correlated with genders. Specifically:

•
The number of university students wishing to land well-paid jobs are correlated with gender (p=0.045). Approximately 62% of male students opined that it is important for a job to be highly remunerative, while only 51% of female students agree with that statement. This also explains why the preponderance of university students wish to be employed in foreign enterprises, constituting 69.4%, in which the percentage of females is 5% larger than that of their males counterparts. The remaining 20.9% of university students want to be employed in private enterprises or start-ups. Only merely 9.7% of students wish to work for state agencies, non-governmental organizations or have not thought of their desired working areas. • The desire for advancement opportunities in the future is strongly correlated with gender (p = 0.01). While roughly 24% of female students consider advancement opportunities to be important, 35.6% of their male counterparts agree so. They believe that the prerequisite to advancement opportunities is self-development in terms of specialist skills, and expert knowledge. As a result, aside from the academic knowledge gained at school, students need to gain more knowledge by various means. For instance, up to 58.1% of students believe they can acquire valuable knowledge by working part-time. In addition, self-study and self-research are also of importance from students' standpoint, as 53.7% of students do research on themselves through books, magazines, and internet so as to obtain in-depth understanding of their studies and future work.
• Furthermore, the desire to have jobs suited to personalities and preferences is also correlated to gender (p = 0.036), with 51% of male students but only 40% of female students agreeing so. There is also reported to be a difference between the perceptions of freshmen and seniors of this criterion in employment, with only 35.2% of freshmen but 40.7% of juniors placing importance on the suitability of jobs in terms of personalities and preferences.
• The desire for getting jobs easily is correlated with gender (p = 0.033), with the proportion of female students attaching significance to this criterion being roughly 10% higher than that of males. Similarly, the percentage of freshmen wishing to get a job easily is 10% higher than that of seniors.

Job attitudes:
Most of the virtues in job attitudes are agreed to be of importance by over half of university students. Some factors in job attitudes that are described as essential are Responsibility, Dynamism, and Work ethic. With regard to 'Responsibility', up to 70% of male students consider this virtue to be important, while the figure for the female counterparts is 66.1%. The rates of this criterion vary from 71.8% of freshmen to 79.5% of juniors. As regards 'Dynamism', the larger proportion of females than males attribute significance to such virtue, at 70.6% and 65.6% respectively. This shows that more female students than their male counterparts consider 'Dynamism' to be an important factor of job attitudes. Regarding this criterion, juniors account for the lowest proportion, at 63.6%, while the percentages for other years of education were more or less 70%, quite in contrast with the figures for 'Responsibility'. In terms of 'Work ethic', there reported to be no marked differences in the proportions between males and females, as well as students from different years of education, which mostly range from 53.5% to 63.6%. The proportions of other factors are quite average, as 1 out of 2 students believe that factors such as 'Honesty, Meticulousness, Adaptability' are important in job attitudes.

Career competencies of university students:
The preponderance of university students attach profound significance to soft skills in their future career. We can see that 65% of surveyed students opine that possessing soft skills can facilitate their job seeking process, while 65.5% of students agree that soft skills allow them to resolve job-related issues more conveniently and effectively, which can consequently enable labor to save time and effort. From this acknowledgement, over 90% of surveyed university students consider foreign language skills to be essential, and 85% of them conceive that communication skills and relationship building skills are also of importance. In addition, time management skill is also selected as crucial by a large proportion of students, as almost all freshmen and sophomores agree so, at 71.1% and 78.1% respectively. As for seniors and juniors, lower rates of choice can be observed, at 68.2% and 59.2% in that order, which shows that the management of seniors and juniors regarding their studies, career research, and internship is more scientific and efficient compared to freshmen. As a result, seniors and juniors give priority to other soft skills instead of time management.
A research by Majid and associates (2012) suggested that teamwork skill, decision-making skill; problem-solving skill; time management skill and critical thinking skill are the 5 soft skills that play the most prominent role in career development. Nonetheless, vitally necessary skills for jobs such as teamwork skills; planning and organizing skills; report writing skills are yet to be attributed importance by university students. Computer skill, presentation skill, planning and organizing skill, negotiating skill, report writing skill, and time management skill are correlated with years of education. Freshmen and sophomores both attach more significance to these skills than juniors and seniors. Notably, report writing skill is also correlated to gender (p = 0.004), with 33.3% of male students considering this skill to be essential, while the figure for their female counterparts is 47.5%.
Awareness of soft skills takes a significant role in future career development, as 83.7% of university students suggest their schools carry out more activities to enhance soft skills right within school, while 54.1% of students wish to participate in useful activities organized by Youth Union, Youth Association, and clubs so that they can hone their organizing, managing, and also communication skills.

Conclusion and Discussion
Based on the research and analyzed results, it can be seen that observation variables such as career awareness, career competencies, and job attitudes all have beneficial impact on career orientation of university students. Therefore, the research proposes several recommendations regarding the policies on career orientation of students at universities.

Raising awareness of career orientation
An immensely important step that needs to be taken as soon as university students consider career selection is the provision of methods by psychologists and careers consultants so as to help students create a more accurate reflection of themselves in terms of personal abilities and preferences in employment. This requires a national programme with a high degree of uniformity and pragmatism executed in a scientific approach so that students can choose careers more appropriately. At a university level, schools can integrate vocational courses, such as the potential career fields, fundamental job requirements, technical skills and knowledge of each specialized area, into promotional documents for student recruitment, whose target audience are students on the threshold of getting into universities. Besides, such valuable information can also be included in university admission booklets and study skills booklets for students before entering universities.

Enhancing the role of job attitudes
Among all contributory factors to the career orientation of university students, the impact coefficient of job attitude of students towards career orientation is the highest. As a result, within the scope of the research, the research team proposes that more practical solutions should be achieved to extend the role of job attitude. Among all observable variables of job attitude, students ascribe paramount importance to careers with 'flexible activeness', responsibility, and work ethic. Consequently, in the process of career orientation in terms of attitudes, schools need to prepare and equip students with dynamism, self-assurance, as well as responsibility for their studies and within and out of school, together with a focus on the subjects that can help develop abilities and work ethic in business.

Further improvement in career competencies
Among all observable variables of career competencies, students attribute significance to foreign language skill; communication skill, relationship building skill, and time management skill. Therefore, in vocational training, schools should supervise and stimulate students in enhancing their career competencies via various methods, such as deployment of career competencies during class, extracurricular activities, seminars, or multiple overlapping approaches throughout the studying process of students at university. In particular, a career skill that is ascribed enormous importance is language skill, which is suited to the ability of students majoring in Economics, as well as the inevitable trends of global economic integration in the contemporary era. To be specific, university students are still interested in foreign enterprises the most, followed by private enterprises, or start-ups, while public sectors occupy the lowest percentage.

Fully develop career awareness of university students
According to the results of the research, many students have already demonstrated awareness of job seeking and their desired occupation in the future. They usually glean information on the necessary tasks of their desired career in the future, always proactively stay informed of the latest information of the career they want to pursue. These acknowledgements are to help seek financially rewarding jobs that are suited to personalities and preferences with a good working environment. It indicates that university students of today express clear opinions regarding career values, which are strongly influenced by income. In other words, income is the determining factor that reflects the appeal of the occupations that students follow, which also suits the trends in employment and selection of careers that are needed by society so the rates of income of such careers are higher than that of the others. It also precisely reflects the reality of the supply and demand of each job, the appeal of jobs due to high salaries, and also the expectations of income of university students.