Journal of Career Assessment

Career calling is a pervasive, purposeful, transcendent, and passion-driven approach to a job that is perceived as central to individuals’ identity, that contributes to the greater good, and for which individuals are willing to make sacrifices. Research on the dynamics of career calling has grown exponentially, but clarity on whether and how a career calling changes during key life transitions is still lacking. In this article, we report the results of a two-wave study in which changes in perceiving a calling, living out a calling, and calling motivation were compared across groups of college students (n = 781), college-to-work transitioners (n = 143), and workers (n = 270). The results show that perceiving a calling is stable for students, decreases during college-to-work transitions, and slightly increases for workers; living out a calling is stable for students, decreases during college-to-work transitions, and slightly decreases for workers; motivation to pursue a calling is stable in all groups and higher for students entering the job market. Workers have lower levels of perceiving and living out a calling than students.

Primarily using a variable-centered approach, job search research explores the connections between antecedents, processes, and outcomes. A person-centered approach, however, categorizes individuals based on personal and contextual elements. This study used CSM as a theoretical framework to identify job seeker profiles by exploring configurations of job search self-efficacy, conscientiousness, financial need, social pressure, and job search quality and intensity. We examined how these profiles correspond with sociodemographic variables and job search outcomes such as rumination, interviews, and job offers. In a sample of 300 job seekers, four profiles emerged: casual job search contemplator, financially burdened job seeker, financially secure job seeker, and multifaceted job search strategist. The contemplator profile correlated with the fewest interviews, while the financially burdened job seeker had the most. These findings suggest career counselors need to recognize distinctive job seeker patterns requiring tailored counseling approaches, underscoring the potential of the person-centered approach for further job search research.

High levels of poverty and unemployment are pervasive barriers to Nigerian emerging adults entering the job market. The current study employed the Psychology of Working Theory to explore career engagement, academic satisfaction, and life satisfaction predictors in a nation experiencing the intersections of high poverty and high unemployment rate. We tested a model predicting these outcomes from economic constraints and marginalization mediated by work volition, career adaptability, and perceptions of future decent work. We administered online surveys to 310 undergraduates in Nigeria. Career adaptability and work volition predicted the perception of future access to decent work. Also, those who reported higher chances of securing decent work after graduation reported greater academic and life satisfaction and career engagement. While economic constraints predicted career adaptability in this model, marginalization did not predict career adaptability. In contrast with previous studies, economic constraints, and marginalization were not predictive of work volition or future decent work perception. We also found a positive relationship between economic challenges and career adaptability against the propositions of the Psychology of Working Theory (PWT). The implications of our findings were discussed.

Career adaptability (CA) is promoted as a skill to navigate the 21st-century labour market. With an emphasis on narrative career counselling as a more relevant form of practice for supporting the career development of people in such rapidly shifting times, it is important to explore the possibility of facilitating a narrative space through which people can tell and connect with their stories of career adaptability. Various qualitative career assessment instruments promote storytelling facilitation which is a major task of narrative career counselling. The Integrative Structured Interview (ISI) is one such qualitative career assessment instrument that facilitates systemic and context-sensitive career storytelling through the integration of quantitative and qualitative career assessments. This study explores the potential role of the ISI in assisting Australian undergraduate students to tell career stories in which the five dimensions of career adaptability can manifest. A theory-driven deductive thematic analysis based on the five dimensions of career adaptability informed data analysis. Key findings reveal the ISI can assist participants in telling stories of career adaptability. Findings also highlight the ISI’s role in providing participants with a systemic and context-sensitive understanding of their career interests through a systemic deconstruction of their Holland code.

Lent’s (2003) Engineering Fields Questionnaire assesses major components of Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) and includes measures of self-efficacy, coping efficacy, outcome expectations, technical interests, and educational goals. These measures have demonstrated good internal consistency in previous research, but validation information is more limited for use with African American STEM students. This paper discusses a validation study of an adapted version of Lent’s Engineering Fields Questionnaire, entitled the STEM Fields Questionnaire, with a sample of African American undergraduate STEM students (n = 526). Validating the STEM Fields Questionnaire for African Americans is particularly important given the role of cultural values and certain experiences in career development among this population. Seven factors resulted from an exploratory factor analysis conducted in the present study: engineering/technology interests, outcome expectations, self-efficacy, STEM coping, goals, bio-chemical sciences interest/self-efficacy, and mathematics interest/self-efficacy, with four of six original subscales represented. Implications for research and practice were discussed.

According to the Psychology of Working Theory (PWT), work need satisfaction is a key predictor of positive outcomes, such as well-being and work fulfillment. However, important cultural differences may exist regarding the relative importance of different types of needs in predicting well-being and work fulfillment. To address this idea, we collected data from workers in the U.S. and Korea and conducted a relative weight analysis with employed adults, comparing how well specific needs predicted the four proposed PWT outcomes. For American workers (n = 281), the five need constructs were more predictive of work and well-being outcomes than for Korean workers (n = 327). The most notable differences were prediction of work meaning and physical health, with social contribution and relatedness need satisfaction being much more predictive of these outcomes in the U.S. than Korean sample, respectively. Overall, the findings suggest that work need satisfaction may promote workers’ well-being in both countries; however, these relationships may differ somewhat depending on the culture. Practical implications and future research directions based on these findings are discussed.

Building on the Social Cognitive Career Theory, this study investigated the mediating role of goal progress and the moderating role of trait positive affect in the link between work-related self-efficacy and job satisfaction. Employing a sample of 366 Turkish school counselors, results show that work-related self-efficacy was positively linked to job satisfaction, and this link was mediated by work goal progress. Moreover, results show that trait positive affect was a significant moderator in the link between work-related self-efficacy and job satisfaction. Specifically, self-efficacy negatively links job satisfaction in school counselors with low trait positive affect. The present results provide preliminary evidence for the proposition that the strength and direction of work-related self-efficacy on job satisfaction is dependent on trait positive affect levels among school counselors. Theoretical and practical implications are presented.

The topic of proactivity has long captured the attention of career scholars, leading to fertile, yet often disconnected streams of inquiry on personality traits and behaviors that can help workers to advance their own careers, improve their work conditions, or access desired rewards. Based on a review of diverse approaches to conceptualizing and assessing proactive career behavior and related constructs, we identified seven commonly appearing behavioral categories and assembled a representative set of items of each category. An exploratory factor analysis in a sub-sample of adult workers (n = 250) yielded three interrelated factors, labeled (a) planning/reflecting/reskilling (or looking ahead, e.g., engaging in self-reflection and skill development efforts); (b) networking/conferring (or looking to others, e.g., consulting with colleagues and supervisors); and (c) exploring/searching (or looking around, e.g., monitoring career options proactively). A bifactor model fit the data well in another sub-sample (n = 337), suggesting that the three factors were subsumed by a larger construct, which we labeled career sustainability behavior. Results of a structural path analysis indicated that, along with supervisor support, proactive personality, and conceptually-relevant self-efficacy measures, engagement in career sustainability behaviors was predictive of perceived internal and external job marketability.

As global labor markets become increasingly unstable, scholars have attempted to operationalize and categorize different forms of poor-quality work, such as with underemployment and precarious work. While these have significant implications for mental health and other outcomes, scholars have mostly studied different forms of underemployment using variable-centered assumptions, which assume homogeneity among workers. However, person-centered approaches may be better suited to studying underemployment because of varying patterns of employment in different industries and occupational categories. Therefore, with a sample of working adults (N = 1,016), we used latent profile analysis to identify profiles of subjective underemployment using seven indicators. We found three distinct profiles: Fully employed, stable underemployed, and precarious workers. Subsequent analyses exploring symptoms of distress, meaningful work, decent work, occupational classification, and level of education revealed key distinctions among the groups, such as precarious workers having the greatest distress and poorest working conditions. Taken together, this study provides a meaningful distinction between underemployed and precarious workers, while highlighting the relevance of these employment groups for several key outcomes.

China’s college entrance examination reforms necessitate a new view of adolescent career development along with suitable assessment instruments for career intervention with secondary school students. We conducted two studies to address this need. The first study examined the evidence for the validity and reliability of the Student Career Construction Inventory (SCCI). The results of the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) supported the four-factor structure of the SCCI. The findings suggest that the SCCI is an effective measure of career-construction behaviors among Chinese secondary school students. The second study evaluated the applicability of the career construction model of adaptation (CCMA). The model was empirically tested using the validated SCCI. The results of the serial mediation analysis confirmed that adaptive readiness indirectly influences adaptability resources, adapting responses, and adaptation results in the CCMA model.

Decent education is conceptualized as playing an important role in preparing young people for college and career and eventual access to decent and satisfying work. While this is a promising extension of psychology of working theory for youth (PWT), the construct was derived from a review of literature, and needs to be informed by research, including youth perspectives. To address this gap and to advance research on youth PWT, we interviewed 17 high school seniors (11 female, four male, two non-binary) with diverse racial/ethnic identities and levels of caretaker educational attainment. Interviews were conducted in the year following the outbreak of COVID-19 with students attending innovative schools that feature student-centered learning, workplace internships, and close relationships with advisors and workplace mentors. Analyses conducted through Consensual Qualitative Research highlight youth perceptions of how relational supports and learning experiences at school and in workplace internships can promote a range of academic, vocational, social skills and psychological resources relevant for college and career readiness. The findings amplify youth understanding of decent education and extend knowledge of psychological resources, including youth purpose, self-efficacy, and critical consciousness, aligned with youth PWT.