Career Counseling Practice Research Articles

Career support for migrants: Transformation or adaptation?

The complex interfaces created by migration not only challenge core beliefs about the purpose of career guidance and counseling but also about the precise nature and level of the support required for migrants. However, the issue has had little academic attention. While traditional theories informing the practice of career guidance and counseling implicitly reflect a commitment to social equality, they were developed in relatively homogenous Western capitalist contexts that were strongly individualized, masculine, secular, action and future focused. As career guidance and counseling services in more individualized countries seek to meet the needs of a growing number of clients from more collectivist cultures, the universal relevance of such models is increasingly open to challenge. This article explores three core challenges posed by migration for the theory and practice of career guidance and counseling. The first relates to the very purpose of these types of services for migrants; the second, to the way in which migration requires a realignment of the relationship of theory with practice; and the third relates to the need to redefine service delivery models for this client group. The extent to which notions of “quality” in services are culturally dependent will also be considered, together with the potential for general service improvements being stimulated by the provision of high quality services for migrants.

Counselors' Perspectives on Using the Career Style Interview With Clients

The authors investigated counselors' perspectives on using the Career Style Interview (CSI) with clients who had career concerns. Participants were a purposive sample of 34 counselors who had been trained in and who had used the CSI with clients. The findings indicated that the counselors viewed the CSI as a helpful and positive career counseling intervention. It was most effective at identifying clients' life themes and assisted them with making meaningful career decisions. Implications of these findings for career counseling practice and research are also discussed.

Reconsidering Interests: The Next Big Idea in Career Counseling Theory Research and Practice

A population of people that are living longer and working longer invite a reconsideration of interests and interest measurement as individuals make substantial changes in their vocational and avocational pursuits later in life. The relationship of interests to vocational hope and childhood exposure to work is also discussed.

New Questions for Vocational Psychology: Premises, Paradigms, and Practices

The innovative responses of vocational psychology and career counseling to the important questions raised by people living in information societies will continue the disciplines’ tradition of helping individuals link their lives to the economic context. The questions pertaining to perspectives, paradigms, and practices arise mainly from the increasing dominance of ‘‘jobless work,’’ which moves people from project to project and from one culture to another culture. These recurring transitions mean that individuals cannot maintain their employment, so they must maintain their employability and actively manage their careers through adaptability, intentionality, life-long learning, and autobiographical reasoning. The emerging practice of career counseling seems to take the general form of constructing career through small stories, deconstructing and reconstructing the small stories into a large story, and co-constructing intention and action to begin the next episode in that large story.

Factors Affecting the Job Satisfaction of Latino/a Immigrants in the Midwest

This study examined the job satisfaction of 253 Latino/a newcomers in three rural communities in the Midwest. Specifically, the authors explored the effects of ethnic identity, Anglo acculturation, Latino/a acculturation, perceptions of the community (social relations, discrimination/racism, and language pressures), job tenure, work hours, and salary on participants’ job satisfaction. Results of a hierarchical regression analysis indicated that ethnic identity and Anglo acculturation had a positive effect, while perceptions of the community related to discrimination/racism had a negative effect on job satisfaction. Latino/a acculturation, perceived social relations in the community, perceived language pressures in the community, job tenure, hours worked, and wages were not significantly related to job satisfaction. The regression model accounted for 16% of the variance in job satisfaction. The implications of the findings for career counseling practice are discussed, and suggestions for future research on Latino/a immigrants’ career development are provided.

Emotional Intelligence as a Salient Predictor for Collegians’ Career Decision Making

Among the plethora of career theories and counseling practices, human emotion continues to be underrepresented. The paucity is evoking discontentment. For many career specialists, a distal role for emotionality has become untenable. This study demonstrated emotional intelligence (EI) associates with familiar constructs within the career decision-making journey. In particular, multiple regression analyses of 561 collegians revealed EI as a salient predictor of vocational personality (Holland’s Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional [RIASEC]), vocational identity, and career indecision. The findings also exposed important gender differences and distinguished which competency of EI is germane to what career construct and gender. Implications from the findings and practical applications for placing emotion in a more proximal role by career counselors are discussed.

Chinese Undergraduate Students’ Work Values: The Role of Parental Work Experience and Part-Time Work Quality

In this study, the authors investigated the association of perceived parental job insecurity and students’ part-time work quality on work values among 341 Hong Kong Chinese undergraduate students. Correlation and regression results showed that work values were strongly related to students’ part-time work satisfaction and work quality. In particular, regression analyses showed that high job satisfaction and low role conflict in the part-time job were significantly related to high motivation to do good work but low work cynicism, even after demographic information was considered. Layoff of the mother was also found to relate to work cynicism. The importance of student career counseling and organizational practice was discussed.

Infusing systems thinking into career counseling

This study examined the role of career counselors in infusing systems thinking into occupational advising. The authors conducted a qualitative review and analysis of selected literature on systems thinking and analyzed trends for adaptation to career counseling practice. This analysis suggests that career counselors need to infuse systems approaches into professional practice, for example, use of systems language that assists the client in exploring career plans. The authors also identified various new right‐brain directed thinking approaches (Pink, 2006; Shutt, 2008) for use in career counseling sessions. Results and implications are discussed.

Stability of Career Aspirations: A Longitudinal Test of Gottfredson’s Theory

Gottfredson’s theory of the career compromise process was evaluated using a longitudinal data set of 2,353 female and 321 male students recruited for Zuckerman’s Seven College Study, who reported their career aspirations twice over a 1-year period. Expressed career aspirations were coded on the dimensions of sex type, prestige, and the interest-based Things/People and Data/Ideas dimensions. Stability of aspirations over an 1-year period were analyzed using partial correlation analyses to control for the nonindependence of measures. Discrepancies between current and idealized career aspirations were also examined using the same methods. Contrary to predictions based on Gottfredson’s theory, student career aspirations were more stable along the prestige and Things/People dimensions than on the sex type dimension. Implications for theory, research, and career counseling practice are discussed.

Brief Overview of the Advancement of Postmodern Approaches to Career Counseling

Global changes in people's lifestyles and in the world of work (prompted by changes in the global economy) have necessitated changes in the facilitation of career counseling in the postmodern era. This article attempts to provide a concise overview of the advancement of postmodern approaches in career counseling. First, it critically evaluates the influence of changes in the workplace on people's lifestyles. Subsequently it elucidates the influence of the different waves in psychology and the economy on helping models in career counseling, and the way in which these waves have shaped the theory and practice of career counseling. This is followed by an illumination of the paradigm shift in career counseling from a predominantly quantitative (positivist) approach to an acknowledgement of the value of qualitative approaches and the development of a combined qualitative-quantitative approach. Lastly, the article explicates the fairly recent emergence of constructivist approaches (concurrently with the emergence of life designing) and career adaptability as a core aim of career counseling.

Interrogating Narrative Approaches: Career Counselling in South African Schools

This article uses an eclectic mix of theoretical underpinnings ranging from constructivism to postmodernism to argue that narrative approaches may be both constructivist and postmodernist. Career counselling is grounded in the narrative approach, meaning that the inquirer, in finding out, is engaged in relational practices making the self an enquirer in relation to the other. Consideration is given to career counselling practices in South African schools. Narrative approaches to career counselling are viable within the Life Orientation subject in the schools.

Exploring the Application of Multiple Intelligences Theory to Career Counseling

This article demonstrates the practical value of applying H. Gardner's (1993) theory of multiple intelligences (MI) to the practice of career counseling. An overview of H. Gardner's MI theory is presented, and the ways in which educational and vocational planning can be augmented by the integration of MI theory in career counseling contexts are discussed. The Multiple Intelligences Developmental Assessment Scales (C. B. Shearer, 2007), a research‐based self‐report measure of intellectual disposition, is introduced, and a case study illustrating the effective application of H. Gardner's MI theory to career counseling is presented.

To Mother or Matter

Despite a burgeoning interest in the interface between work and relationships, and its origins in feminist thought, crucial aspects of women’s experiences have remained invisible in the face of mainstream discourse in the career field. Many women have and will continue to define motherhood as a career, yet none of our career development theories do so. In this article, an historical, sociocultural, and political framework for the context of the career development of women who mother is offered. Existing career theory is discussed in light of women’s mothering work and a relational cultural paradigm is offered as a theoretical backdrop for the consideration of critical issues relevant to women’s work. Implications for career counseling practice, research, and public policy are offered.

Practice and Research in Career Counseling and Development—2007

This annual review of the research and practice literature related to career counseling and development during 2007 is presented in 9 areas: professional issues, career assessment, career development, career theory and concepts, career interventions, advances in technology, personnel selection and job placement, international perspectives, and book reviews. Professional issues of a multicultural, multiethnic, and diversified workforce have become among the most frequently enumerated themes of the 2007 career development literature. The author summarizes and discusses the implications of the findings in this literature for the practice of career counseling.

The Impact of Attachment on Career-Related Variables

There has been a significant amount of research investigation focused on the construct of attachment, and also a significant amount of research investigation using the social cognitive career theory (SCCT). More recently, researchers have investigated the influence of attachment on career-related variables. Studies that focus on both attachment and career-related variables are reviewed in this article. Findings from the majority of studies reviewed support the assertion that attachment could be a crucial factor in career development. A limitation of past research has been the lack of a theoretical framework that explains the relationship between attachment constructs and career-related variables. To address this limitation, the authors propose that the combination of attachment theory and SCCT could provide a useful and more comprehensive framework to guide future research in this area. The integration of the two theories is explained, and suggestions for career counseling practice and future research are provided.

Randomized trial of a calling-infused career workshop incorporating counselor self-disclosure

A randomized controlled trial was used to test (1) the efficacy of a two-session career development workshop for college student participants; (2) the effect of counselor self-disclosure on outcomes; and (3) the effect of infusing calling and vocation concepts on outcomes. Both standard (person–environment fit) and calling/vocation-infused interventions improved career decision self-efficacy relative to a wait-list control. Counselor self-disclosure also increased participant career decision self-efficacy in both conditions and increased appraisals of meaning in life for participants in calling/vocation-infused workshops. Incorporating considerations of calling and vocation neither detracted from nor added to workshop effectiveness. Career development workshops were supported, as was the use of moderate counselor self-disclosure. Suggestions for career counseling practice and intervention research are discussed.

Using Accuracy of Self-Estimated Interest Type as a Sign of Career Choice Readiness in Career Assessment of Secondary Students

A frequent applied method in career assessment to elicit clients' self-concepts is asking them to predict their interest assessment results. Accuracy in estimating one's interest type is commonly taken as a sign of more self-awareness and career choice readiness. The study evaluated the empirical relation of accuracy of self-estimation to career choice readiness within a sample of 350 Swiss secondary students in seventh grade. Overall, accuracy showed only weak relations to career choice readiness. However, accurately estimating one's first interest type in a three-letter RIASEC interests code emerged as a sign of more vocational identity and total career choice readiness. Accuracy also correlated positively with interest profile consistency, differentiation, and congruence to career aspirations. Implications of the results for career counseling and assessment practice are presented.

Accompagnement en entreprise et intentions liées à la carrière chez des apprentis du bâtiment

Most of the career counseling's practices are destined to seasoned employees (coaching, competencies, elicitation carer counseling, “validation of experiential learning”). It seems that the young employees who have recently joined a company do not benefit from so many practices. Nevertheless, the article aims at questioning the role of certain guidance and counselling activities, often non-formal (mentorship) but sometimes formal (tutorship) which are provided to new recruits (in this case, apprentices) during their integration phase, and at identifying their effect on career-related intentions. Four hundred and seven apprentices from the building sector have been interrogated on the way they consider socialisation's guidance in their apprenticeship company. The results underline that many levels of guidance are perceived in the company and that each is related to different intentions in relation to career-commitment and to the commitment in a professional sector.

Introduction to the Special Section

In this special section of The Career Development Quarterly, the authors pay tribute to the contributions of David Valentine Tiedeman (1919–2004) to the theory and practice of career counseling and development and vocational psychology. Tiedeman is honored as laying the foundation for the contemporary theory and practice of career construction. The articles published in this section emerged as a result of a special symposium dedicated to honor Tiedeman and his work that was held at the 2006 National Career Development Association Global Conference in Chicago.

The Genuine Scientist-practitioner in Vocational Psychology: An Autoethnography

This paper explores the notion of the scientist-practitioner in vocational psychology. It is suggested that despite the visage of science and technology, the actual practice of vocational psychology and career counselling is a very personal endeavour. The paper uses autoethnography to elucidate the construction of the career assessment and counselling procedure My Career Chapter. It is argued that the genuine creator of the procedure was not the chimerical scientist-practitioner; rather it was a sensitive rural, working-class boy who had transcended strictures of economic class and culture. His transformation inherently effected his doing the science and practice of vocational psychology. The paper suggests that the lamented divide between theory and practice in vocational psychology may be reduced through autoethnographic inquiry, which proffers a personal bridge between the two without diminishing commitment to orthodox forms of psychological science.