Employability tracer study of the bachelor of science in legal management graduates of Cagayan State University

The Preliminary Survey Visit on the program of the Accrediting Agency of Chartered Colleges and Universities in the Philippines found out that the college has no tracer studies conducted to monitor the whereabouts of graduates. As a result of this finding, the first tracer study thus conducted covering the graduates from 2016 to 2019 batch of graduates. The conduct of this tracer study will help the College to broaden its intention of improving the curricular offering of the program. This study is designed to determine the employability of the Legal Management graduates from year 2016–2019. This study tried to monitor the whereabouts of the graduates from 2016 to 2019 with a total of 212. The survey yielded a response rate of 53.21% or 107 out of 212 targeted respondents. The existence of the pandemic had made it harder for the conduct of this study coupled with the problem that some of the graduates are working outside of the region thus hard to reach which reduced the response rate thus electronic version of the survey questionnaire was sent thru their e-mails and/or social media (e.g., Facebook). Those graduates who have not been reached were excluded in this study. The gathering of data was done in mid part of 2020 to July of 2021. The study has made used of the descriptive-quantitative research design utilizing simple frequency counts and percentages. Results in the conduct of this study are of significance for identifying and addressing curriculum related issues. Based from the findings, majority of the traced graduates took a short period of time in searching for an employment and skills possessed by the graduates as manifested in the data are relevant to their present job. In view of the findings in this study, the following are strongly recommended The conduct of a regular tracer study must be given priority by the College or the Alumni Relations and Placement Services to ensure that graduates are equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills to make them highly employable in the industry while the College or the University creates a specific Committee or group designed in the monitoring of the whereabouts of the graduates by creating a mechanism where the graduates can easily access and update their employment status. The Alumni Relations and Placement Services of the Campus of the University should help graduates search for employment to minimize underemployment of its graduates. Similar studies must be conducted to explore into other variables related to graduates’ employability like reasons of the unemployment of some of the graduates, number of times the respondents changed job, number of graduates whose jobs are not related to their course yet remain with the present work, job satisfaction and promotion, congruence between curriculum and skills that industry expects from would-be employees