The ideal candidate to a job through a conjoint study

In this paper, we present and discuss the results of a survey conducted of 250 entrepreneurs of manufacturing compa-nies and of industrial services of the Veneto region, Italy. The entrepreneurs expressed their preferences in relation to the hypothetical profiles of candidates for five job positions in the administrative, human resources, marketing, infor-mation system and commercial offices of firms. For the collection of data, we adopted a conjoint experiment, aimed at eliciting the characteristics of the graduates who could fill each one of the five positions: for each position, the entre-preneurs were asked to choose among four profiles of possible candidates qualified by six attributes. The data were analysed through a multinomial logit model that highlighted the characteristics of the ideal candidates for the hypothe-sised vacancies. The analysis showed that entrepreneurs are able, in general, to associate applicants' competencies to vacancies. They are not only able to associate people who graduated in technical courses to technical job positions, but they are also able to evaluate other characteristics such as linguistic skills, graduates' will to enhance their competencies abroad or through internships and their availability to travel on business. Therefore, graduates who are able to learn and invest at work are preferred (in the entrepreneurs' minds) to graduates who rely simply on their academic knowledge and who do not invest after and beyond college studies.