Abstract
This paper explores how HRM master’s students construct a viable professional identity in anticipation of organisational entry, and how these identity processes shape what forms of sustainability agency they perceive as legitimate and possible. Drawing on identity work (Sveningsson & Alvesson, 2003) and identity regulation (Alvesson & Willmott, 2002), integrated with Aust et al.’s (2020) distinction between inside‑out and outside‑in Sustainable HRM, the paper conceptualises students’ anticipated engagement with sustainability as shaped by efforts to construct a credible, employable and organisationally legitimate professional self. Narrative interviews with HRM master’s students at a UK business school provide empirical grounding for this framework. Early analysis suggests that sustainability ambitions are filtered through anticipatory identity work oriented toward legitimacy, employability and organisational alignment. The paper contributes to identity scholarship by extending identity work into the pre‑professional domain and to Sustainable HRM debates by showing how sustainability agency is constrained before practice begins.