Can college students benefit from negative events in job search? The moderating roles of error aversion and social comparison orientation

In the increasingly competitive job market, college graduates inevitably encounter negative events of varying strengths in the job search process. The current study aims to explore how and when negative event strength influences their job search performance. Drawing on crisis decision theory, we argue that negative event strength interacts with individual characteristics (i.e., error aversion and social comparison orientation) to influence job seekers’ job search effort and subsequent job search performance (i.e., the number of job offers). Using a sample of 245 college graduates, we tested our hypotheses with the PROCESS macro Version 4.1. Our results show that the effect of negative event strength on job search effort was more pronounced for individuals with lower levels of error aversion and those with lower levels of social comparison orientation, leading to a greater number of job offers. This study contributes to the job search literature by shedding light on the mechanisms through which negative event strength influences job search performance.