Adaptability in Action: Using Personality, Interest, and Values Data to Help Clients Increase Their Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Career Meta-capacities

Abstract

Career adaptability encompasses the attitudes, behaviors, and competencies that people use “in fitting themselves into work that suits them” (Savickas, Career development and counseling: Putting theory and research to work, Hoboken, Wiley, p. 45, 2005) . Savickas (The Career Development Quarterly, 45:247–259, 1997) proposed adaptability as a unifying concept to Super’s (The psychology of careers. New York: Harper & Row, 1957; Career development in the 1980s: Theory and practice, pp. 28–42, Springfield: Thomas, 1981; Career choice and development, pp. 197–261 San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990) life-span, life-space theory, essentially integrating the three major perspectives that Super elaborated: development, self, and context. Career adaptability includes four specific dimensions: concern, control, curiosity, and confidence. Career counselors can use these four dimensions dynamically within the counseling process to help clients better adapt their needs and capacities to different constraints imposed by the work environment (Savickas et al., Journal of Vocational Behavior, 75:239–250, 2009) .