Employment outlook before search? A four-wave RI-CLPM study of environmental career exploration and perceived employment outlook among undergraduates in Liaoning Province, China.

Career exploration is often expected to improve university students' employment expectations, whereas favorable expectations may also encourage subsequent career action. This four-wave longitudinal study examined between-person and within-person associations between environmental career exploration (ECE) and perceived employment outlook (EPO) among 2,267 undergraduates recruited from 16 universities in Liaoning Province, China. Surveys were administered across one academic year at intervals of approximately 8, 13, and 9 weeks. A free-lag random-intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) with demographic and institutional variables included as missing-data auxiliaries separated stable between-person differences from occasion-specific deviations. The random intercepts were positively correlated, r = 0.673, p < 0.001. Higher-than-usual EPO predicted higher subsequent ECE from T1 to T2 (β = 0.065, p = 0.030) and from T3 to T4 (β = 0.094, p = 0.001), but not across the longer winter-recess interval from T2 to T3 (β = 0.022, p = 0.482). Higher-than-usual ECE predicted lower subsequent EPO only from T3 to T4 (β = -0.069, p = 0.024); the earlier paths were nonsignificant. Multiple-indicator modeling that accommodated the noninvariant EPO3 intercepts and a two-item EPO sensitivity analysis produced the same interval-specific pattern. Stratified comparisons showed no university-tier or academic-major differences that survived multiplicity correction. The findings indicate that the prospective ECE-EPO association varied across the academic year in this regional sample. Because ECE measured search frequency rather than the content or valence of information obtained, the negative final-interval association does not establish that exploration is ineffective or identify the mechanism underlying expectation revision.