Operationalize Interest Congruence: A Comparative Examination of Four Approaches

Abstract

Although interest congruence is a cornerstone of career counseling, little is known about the relative importance of different operationalization approaches to interest congruence (i.e., how to calculate interest congruence). Using a sample of U.S. employees ( n = 303), the current study comparatively examined four profile-based conceptual congruence approaches, namely Euclidean distance, angular agreement, profile deviance, and profile correlation, in terms of their predictions for job and life satisfaction, turnover intention, and perceived person–job fit. The results found that profile correlation demonstrated complete dominance (i.e., ubiquitously stronger predictive utility) over the other three congruence indices in predicting all four career outcomes. Therefore, the current study portrays profile correlation as a preferred operationalization approach to interest congruence and offers rich implications for congruence research and practice.