Career readiness and well-being: The mediation role of strategies for coping with career indecision

In the uncertain and flexible labour market, some people experience indecision in dealing with career choices, despite having career readiness. The present research explored the relationship between career readiness, strategies for coping with career indecision, and well-being. Participants were 529 people aged between 18 and 60 ( M = 26.57; SD = 6.83). The survey included: Readiness scale of the Career Transition Inventory, Productive scale and Support Seeking scale of Strategies for coping with career indecision, Flourishing Scale and Satisfaction with life scale. Results show that both productive and support-seeking strategies mediate the association between career readiness and flourishing and between career readiness and life satisfaction. As implications for career guidance, in addition to favouring career readiness, counsellors could promote productive strategies for coping with career indecision– and in some cases, support-seeking strategies–, to help people transform the experience of career indecision from insurmountable obstacles into an opportunity to act towards well-being.

Construction and Initial Validation of the Higher Education Orientations Questionnaire

Attaining higher education continues to be important for successful integration into the 21st-century world of work. The goal of the present study was to develop and test a 5-dimensional model and a corresponding measure of individuals’ orientations toward higher education––the Higher Education Orientations (HEO) questionnaire. The proposed model comprises five orientations: Profession (attaining an occupation), Knowledge (expanding knowledge and intellectual horizons), Social (expanding social affiliation and integration), Prestige (attaining social status), and External (pleasing significant others). Study 1a ( N = 798) supported the HEO questionnaire’s psychometric properties, and an EFA supported its five-factor structure. The results of a CFA in Study 1b ( N = 748) confirmed the HEO’s five-dimensional structure. Study 2 ( N = 395) supported the psychometric qualities of the HEO’s English version. In Study 3 ( N = 713), using SEM, we found the HEO associated with (a) career decision status, (b) career decision-making difficulties, and (c) coping strategies, supporting its validity. Implications for research and counseling are discussed.

“What Can I Be When I Grow Up?”—The Influence of Own and Others’ Career Expectations on Adolescents’ Perception of Stress in Their Career Orientation Phase

The future that adolescents are growing up to live and work in becomes increasingly complex and vague, making job choice a moving target. Thus, adolescents develop and are confronted with a number of different options for what job they wish to take up and have to balance their own and their social environment’s job aspirations for them. Prior research has suggested including more dynamic approaches to understanding career choice and counseling. In this research, we therefore draw on the possible selves approach and aim at understanding how far imbalance between adolescents’ own and their social environments’ expectations for their vocational future will cause stress. In an online mixed-methods study, 163 adolescent participants, aged 14–22, reported their own and their parents’, teachers’, and friends’ emotions, future orientation, and perceived stress regarding the career choice. Results showed a variety of expectations for future careers held by participants and their social environment, as well as emotions regarding these expectations. Positive deactivating emotions (satisfaction and relief) negatively predicted adolescents’ stress and strain and the older and closer to final job choice participants were, the more they reported stress and strain. These findings suggest including adolescents’ social environment in the career choice process.

Strategies for Coping With Career Indecision During the College-to-Work Transition: Concurrent and Predictive Validity

The goal of the present research was to test a model of strategies for coping with career indecision during the college-to-work transition and its accompanied measure (the Strategies for Coping with Career Indecision–College-to-Work Transition Questionnaire [SCCI-CWTQ]), as predictors of career choice-related outcomes. Study 1 ( N = 522) supported the psychometric properties of the SCCI-CWTQ in a sample of college seniors and confirmed the model’s hierarchical structure with three coping styles: productive, support-seeking, and nonproductive styles. Study 2 ( N = 659) tested the concurrent and incremental predictive validity of the SCCI-CWTQ. The results showed that productive coping style was positively associated with a sense of coping efficacy, career decision status, and career choice satisfaction 1 year following graduation, whereas using a nonproductive coping style was negatively related to those outcomes and positively associated with career decisional distress. Theoretical as well as practical implications pertaining to career decision-making during the college-to-work transition are suggested.

Dysfunctional Career Decision-Making Beliefs: A Multidimensional Model and Measure

Dysfunctional beliefs are among the most prevalent, severe difficulties many individuals face in the process of making career decisions. The goal of the present study was to develop and test a new multidimensional measure of Dysfunctional Career Decision-Making Beliefs ( DCB). The DCB questionnaire elicits individuals’ beliefs in five aspects of career decision-making: the role of chance or fate, the criticality of the decision, the role of significant others, the role of professional help, and perceived gender barriers. Study 1 used exploratory factor analysis and cluster analysis to test the psychometric properties and the five-factor structure of the DCB with a sample of 937 young adults deliberating about their future career. Study 2 used confirmatory factor analysis to validate the structure of the DCB with another sample of 1,251 young adults and analyzed the associations between individuals’ DCB Scale scores and career decision status to test its concurrent validity. The results supported the proposed multidimensional model of dysfunctional beliefs. Implications for future research and career counseling are discussed.

The Mediation Effects of Career Exploration on the Relationship Between Trait Anxiety and Career Indecision

This study investigated trait anxiety, career exploration behaviors, and career indecision. Using longitudinal data, career exploration behavior was examined as a mediator in the relationship between trait anxiety and career indecision. Five hundred and one Korean college students completed online questionnaires at three different time points with a 6-month interval. Results showed significant mediation effects of career exploration behaviors. Specifically, a higher level of trait anxiety was associated with a lower level of initial career exploration, yet anxiety increased career exploration behaviors over time. Additionally, an increase in career exploration behaviors predicted a decrease in career indecision. The results suggest that the role of trait anxiety in career exploration and decision-making may change over time. While trait anxiety is related to less exploration and more difficulty in decision-making from a cross-sectional perspective, it may facilitate career exploration and, ultimately, career decision-making from a longitudinal perspective.

Strategies for Coping with Career Indecision

The goal of the present research was to test the convergent and divergent validity of the Strategies for Coping with Career Indecision (SCCI) model and questionnaire, which comprises three main coping styles— Productive coping, Support-seeking, and Nonproductive coping—using three samples of young adults deliberating about their career choice. Study 1 tested the association between the SCCI and career decision-making profiles, using a sample of 390 young adults. Study 2 tested the relations between the SCCI and emotional and personality-related career decision-making difficulties, using a sample of 454 young adults. Finally, Study 3 tested the associations between the SCCI and career decision self-efficacy as well as the five dimensions of the Big Five Inventory, using a sample of 451 young adults. All three studies also tested the SCCI’s incremental validity by assessing its ability to predict individuals’ stages in the career decision-making process over and above the other measures. The results supported the convergent and divergent validity and partially supported the incremental validity of the SCCI. The theoretical and counseling implications are discussed and suggestions for future research are presented.