DETERMINAN MINAT KARIR MAHASISWA EKONOMI ISLAM DI SEKTOR KEUANGAN SYARIAH

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the influence of Career Value Preferences and Salary Expectation on the Career Interest of Islamic Economics students at Universitas Padjadjaran toward the Islamic sector. A paradoxical phenomenon shows that 76% of Islamic Economics graduates are absorbed into the conventional sector, while only 15% pursue careers in the Islamic sector despite receiving intensive Islamic economics education for four years. The research employs a quantitative method using Structural Equation Modeling-Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS) analysis with SmartPLS 4.0 on 87 respondents from the 2022 cohort. The results indicate that Career Value Preferences has a positive and significant influence on Career Interest (β = 0.318; p = 0.000; medium effect size: f² = 0.151), and Salary Expectation has a positive and highly significant influence on Career Interest (β = 0.491; p = 0.000; large effect size: f² = 0.361). A key finding indicates that salary expectations, in this context, measure the perceived adequacy of compensation in the sharia sector, not high nominal expectations. Simultaneously, both variables explained 50% of the variance in career interest (R² = 0.500). The study concludes that the primary problem with low career interest is not student over-materialism, but rather a lack of transparency in compensation information, leading to substantial misperceptions, even though the actual gap is only 8% for entry-level students.