Dynamic Effects of Career Adaptability on Job Search Outcomes: A Network Analysis

Abstract

Based on career construction theory, career adaptability is a psychological resource for individuals to deal with career events, and it is a system of human-environment interaction. The components of the career adaptability concept are not independent of each other, but rather an interactive network. Network analysis, as a new method in recent psychometric studies, is more suitable for revealing the internal structure of career adaptivity by providing information on the different relationships between indicators. The present study aims to shed light on the nomological network of career adaptability and the job search outcome by investigating their facet levels using network analysis, to reveal their structural networks and interrelationships. In addition, we compared the similarities and differences between the networks of different gender groups. Each model analyzes the centrality indices to determine the relative importance of each facet in each network, and conducts the central-stability coefficient and bootstrapped difference tests. Results indicate that career adaptability is directly connected to job search outcome for students, realizing that today’s choices shape the future and learning new skills may be the key adaptive factors that influence job search outcome. Second, the global structure of the gender-specific networks is very similar, although some differences have been detected, such that the overall strength of the male networks is higher than that of the female networks. Becoming curious about new opportunities is the core of the male network, while the core of the female network is doing what’s right for me.