The Effect of Drivers of Social Media Usage and Job Seeking Behavior on the Employability of Students of the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Tehran

Considering the increasing rate of competition in the graduates’ job market as well as the increase in education costs and society's expectations from the higher education system to develop employability, the current empirical research has investigated the effect of drivers of social media usage and job seeking behavior on the employability of students of Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Tehran. In this quantitative research which is a causal-relational study, 187 students (from all educational levels) were sampled from a population of 3500 cases using Daniel's limited population formula. Simple random sampling method was used to select the individual samples. A close-ended questionnaire was employed to collect data. The face, discriminant, and construct validities were checked and confirmed. Then,  coefficient was utilized to check the reliability of the research tool. The results of reliability test revealed that the coefficient for each construct was more than 0.7 as an acceptable cut-off vale. The dominant statistical method used in this research was variance-based structural equation modeling using Smart PLS 3 software. The modeling results indicated that drivers of the use of social media did not affect the job seeking behavior of students, while this construct had a positive and significant effect on the employability dimensions. Also, job seeking behavior positively and significantly affected employability dimensions. According to the results, it was suggested to set up an agricultural knowledge and information network in the agricultural higher education system.