From Psychological Resilience to Employment Quality: A Four-Wave Longitudinal Study of Career Adaptability and Job-Search Self-Efficacy

Objective: Although psychological resources help graduates navigate competitive labor markets, it remains unclear how psychological resilience—defined here as the capacity to maintain or restore effective functioning when goal pursuit is disrupted by setbacks—is related to the quality rather than the mere acquisition of first employment. This study examines whether resilience predicts employment quality through career adaptability and job-search self-efficacy sequentially, and evaluates digital job-search ability (DJSA) and market pressure as moderators. Methods: A four-wave longitudinal study of 1500 final-year students at tertiary institutions (university undergraduates and vocational-college students in their graduating year) used stratified cluster sampling. Resilience was assessed at T1; adaptability and market pressure at T2; self-efficacy and digital job-search ability at T3; and employment quality at T4. The final analytic sample comprised 860 graduates who were in paid employment at T4. The analyses decomposed sample flow, evaluated employment selection, applied small-cluster corrections, evaluated the study-specific digital scale in split samples and validated the study-specific digital scale in split samples, and varied employment-quality construction and functional form. Results: In the primary latent model, resilience was positively associated with employment quality (β = 0.17, p < 0.001). Three indirect pathways emerged: via adaptability alone (B = 0.07, 95% CI [0.03, 0.11]), via self-efficacy alone (B = 0.06, 95% CI [0.02, 0.10]), and through both sequentially (B = 0.06, 95% CI [0.02, 0.09]). In the prespecified single-level model, moderation effects were small and nominally significant for digital job-search ability × self-efficacy (β = 0.12, p < 0.01, ΔR² = 0.02) and market pressure × resilience (β = 0.09, p < 0.05, ΔR² = 0.01), but neither was supported after cluster-adjusted small-sample inference. The direct association was comparatively stable in direction; mediation and moderation were specification-dependent. Conclusions: Resilience was prospectively associated with employment quality, but evidence for the proposed mechanisms was specification-dependent.