Individual Resilience and Academic Achievements: a Soft Traits Approach to Craft Universities’ Placement and Facilitate Firms’ Onboarding

The “person-organization fit” axiom suggests firms are looking for profiles with specific soft skills to face the increasing level of environmental turbulence. However, the universities’ Placement Service is often not targeted on the full profile of the individual which comprises both hard and soft skills. This research studies some soft traits of students during the pandemic period and found that academic achievements can represent indicators of resilience (i.e., positive thinking, emotional intelligence, and planfulness), which is particularly valued by firms hiring new graduates. This soft trait approach—that studies how various measures of soft skills are related to course grades—has a two-fold significance by crafting universities’ placement activities and facilitating firms’ onboarding.