Financial stress and sustainable start to graduate careers during the COVID-19 pandemic

This paper examines the efficacy of career resources for sustainable career outcomes for university leavers who experienced high financial stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Theoretically the study brings together concepts from sustainable careers theory and psychological framework of scarcity to understand the impact of financial stress in early graduate careers. The study is informed by two-wave survey data (at the time of graduation and one and a half years after graduation) from the 2020-cohort of graduates in the UK. Findings show that career resources do predict sustainable career outcomes, and this effect is explained through person-career fit. However, the effect of career resources at graduation on sustainable career outcomes one and a half years after graduation was only significant for those who experienced high financial stress at the time of graduation. These findings have implications for sustainable career theory and broadening the scope of education-to-work transitions research.