Do educational mismatches influence job satisfaction?

It is important that higher education provide students with competences that enable them to maintain their employability in the professional environment. On the other hand, research has confirmed the existence of a positive relationship between education and job satisfaction by means of wages. Education-job mismatches are also reported to have serious effects on a number of labour market outcomes. But the consequences of educational mismatches (overeducation and undereducation) on employees working as construction site managers and the defects of their higher education have not been explored yet. This paper presents an exploratory study which seeks to examine the educational mismatch experienced by building engineers working as site managers, and analyses the relationship with job satisfaction. Using an interpretive approach within the qualitative paradigm, semi-structured in-depth interviews were carried out with a total of 34 Spanish building engineers. All were asked about their higher education and about their first professional experiences managing construction sites. More than half of participants confirm that the perceived negative educational mismatch (undereducation) has a negative influence in their job satisfaction, while the rest declare there is no effect. Undereducation also generates additional negative effects such as insecurity, uncertainty, embarrassment, frustration, work overload and waste of time. In order to overcome this situation, these professionals have developed different strategies such as delegating tasks, subcontracting and participating in training courses. Early conclusions are that educational mismatches due to undereducation are an important cause of job dissatisfaction for graduates in Building Engineering. Consequently, they may negatively impact construction companies through productivity decreases of these employees.