Individual resilience and academic achievements: a soft traits approach to craft universities' placement and facilitate firms' onboarding

PurposeFrequently the universities' Placement Service is based on the student's hard profile at the expense of soft traits. On the other side, the “person–organization fit” axiom suggests firms are looking for profiles with specific soft skills to face the increasing level of environmental turbulence. This research aims to understand if high-resilience students also have high academic achievements and how the three components of resilience (emotional intelligence, positive thinking, planfulness) can have different impact on individual performances.Design/methodology/approachThe research was conducted on students enrolled on different courses of studies and years in an Economics and Law faculty. A questionnaire was administered during the first exam session (ante-Covid) and the second and third exam sessions (post-Covid). This questionnaire consists of 84 questions related to planfulness, emotional intelligence and positive thinking, whose combination can be considered a measure of resilience. In fact, the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was carried to identify these three new variables (the components) based on the 84 initial ones. Finally, an ordered logit model was implemented to verify whether, and in what direction, planfulness, emotional intelligence, positive thinking and Covid 19 (the independent variables) affected the students' performance (the dependent one).FindingsWhile planfulness positively affected academic performance, emotional intelligence affected it negatively. The impact of positive thinking and Covid was not significant, and thus what emerged from the preliminary analysis of the grades is not confirmed.Research limitations/implicationsThis is a case study of a university experience that is paying great care in preparing students to satisfy the firms' work demands. To confirm and refine results the sample will be expanded to other faculties and other life/soft skills will be investigated.Practical implicationsThis 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.Social implicationsThis is a case study of a university experience; a university that is paying great attention to preparing students ready to satisfy the firms' work demands but also citizens capable of supporting the growth of their nation and society in general.Originality/valueThe research can be considered a first step towards the inclusion of the formal evaluation of the students' life skills in their academic path, creating a link with their achievements.