Actions Recent Engineering Graduates Undertake to Integrate into the Workplace-A Case Study from the Aerospace Industry

This study extends the literature on organizational socialization by examining newly-hired engineers' proactive actions to integrate into the workplace, relating them to the four primary socialization task domains - task mastery, role clarification, acculturation, and social integration. The study conducts semi-structured interviews with 26 newly-hired engineers in aerospace companies. The results identify 16 proactive actions of newly-hired engineers during their socialization period. The most crucial actions during the onboarding period are interacting with coworkers, using available resources and tutorials, participating in training opportunities, learning through hands-on experience, seeking opportunities to learn and solve problems independently, and possessing self-belief to meet commitments. The study's findings provide valuable practical implications for engineering students, newly-hired engineers, engineering managers and organizations, and engineering educators concerning the use of specific actions to improve newly-hired engineers' socialization period.