Career counseling theory overview

Career Development and Counseling

Career development and counseling have created theories and ways to assist with career growth in most Western countries, particularly the United States of America. These methods were pioneered by Frank Parson, who created a trait factor approach hypothesis in the twentieth century. The discipline has grown, and it now has a solid empirical and theoretical foundation. In the future years, this notion has the potential to expand globally. Depending on culture and country, career concerns are always prominent in different regions of the world. Because of economic globalization, all individuals face career-related challenges that are unique to their culture yet may be shared by numerous cultural groups. Examples of the career concerns that seem to affect people universally include; search for life’s purpose and meaning, the journey to actualize oneself through various work roles, and efforts of nations to deal with unemployment. This paper contains three sections. The first part gives an introduction to two career theories which include; theory of work adjustment and the self-concept theory of career development. The second section is going to discuss how to integrate the two approaches and apply them to counseling practice. The last part will discuss the cultural considerations within the theoretical model.

Keywords: career, self-concept, culture, trait

Career Counseling Theory Overview

An overview of the theories

A set of a theoretical framework and universal validity, as well as cultural models, are required to achieve career guidance and development as a global discipline. These requirements are used to discuss career development issues at local level. This section looks at the two theories; the theory of work adjustment and the self-concept theory of career development.

Theory of Work Adjustment

It is a class of theory in career development that deals with an individual difference in traditional vocational behavior (Baumeister, 2010). It views career development as a continuous process that entails a person looking for a job in a particular organization that matches his or her needs. In this approach, work is conceptualized as the interaction between an individual and the work environment. The environment requires that certain tasks be performed and accomplished whereby an individual is to bring skills in the performance of the work (Velez & Moradi, 2012). The individual will ask for compensation and some conditions that include safe and comfortable place to work. For a long lasting interaction between the environment and an individual, each must meet each other’s requirement (Sullivian & Baruch, 2009). Correspondence is the term used to mean the degree to which the requirements of both are met. Work adjustment is a mutual process that ensures that both the parties involved are all satisfied. Tenure is the indicator of work adjustment and it results from the satisfaction and the satisfactoriness of an individual and the work environment (Savickas et al., 2009). Work environment and personalities can be described with regards to structure and variable styles which are usually measured using dimensions.

The organization is also looking for employees who will match their requirements for the job they are offering. The organization and the person looking for employment have mutual satisfaction in that qualified staff and the person applying for the job is satisfied with the environment that he or she is going to work (BarNir, Watson & Hutchins, 2011). The applicant’s needs may entail both psychological and physical needs which are termed as values. To the company, the most central requirement is the abilities and the skills that are needed to perform the job. These talents and skills are considered necessary for a particular applicant for the position.

The satisfaction of the company on the capabilities of the employee to do the job and the acceptance of the working environment by the applicant will determine the tenure of the worker (Savickas, Nota, Rossier, Dauwalder, Duarte, Guichard & Van Vianen, 2009). The recent formulation of various adjustments has helped in explaining how the organization and the applicant for the job achieve and maintain their correspondence. These changes include flexibility, activeness, perseverance, and reactiveness. Flexibility refers to the level of tolerance between the employee and the organization. It is a dis-correspondence between a company and its employee and the tendency of the organization becoming satisfied with the worker (Baumeister, 2010). Activeness refers to the tendency of the employees taking action on the worker if he or she displays dis-satisfaction with the environment of work. Reactiveness refers to whether the organization will act to self-adjustment to deal with dis-correspondence before taking any action. Lastly, perseverance refers to the extent to which an employee can withstand the conditions in the working environment before he or she exits the company or organization. Career development is, therefore, a continuous process that looks at the dis-satisfaction and dis-satisfactoriness of the organization.

The strength of the theory is that a battery of measures has been outlined to measure the variables that are associated with the approach (Sullivan & Baruch, 2009). These measures include measures of satisfaction and needs, skills, and abilities, indexes of correspondence and satisfactoriness. Theory of work adjustment explains career development regarding the comfort of the person’s response to the environment. It provides the career guidance counselors with the template that contains entry points for assisting clients with career decision-making difficulties and adjustment concerns (Velez & Moradi, 2012). The propositions developed in work adjustment theory can only be used in the diverse cultural settings. Therefore, they should be validated before taking a hypothesis test elsewhere.

The theory is applicable for those that want to make decisions about career choices, those that face career adjustment problems and the retirees who want to continue working but need career choice counseling.

Self-concept Theory of Career Development

The role of the theory in career development is evident in most of the theoretical position and counseling approaches. It has been described as a matching theory which entails an individual looking for occupations which match their attributes (BarNir et al., 2011). It has multiple dimensions which include developmental, psychological, personal and social aspects (Velez & Moradi, 2012). Through closer dimensions of the theory by leading career development theorists, it has been discovered that it contains dimensions and meta-dimensions. Aspects of self-concept are considered traits and attributes that a person assigns to others and themselves while meta-dimension are described as the traits that a person attributes to themselves (Savickas et al., 2009). Meta-dimensions can be used to describe the tone and the similarity in personality traits.

Self-concept always develops with time through interactions and experiences with aptitudes, skills and the opportunity to observe work roles (Baumeister, 2010). It can develop from childhood and then further crystallize at adolescence stage. Self-concept can change and transform with time according to someone’s response and interaction with the environment (Velez & Moradi, 2012). It develops in three stages which include; formation, translation and implementation. The formation stage involves differentiating oneself from others and identifying role models who will shape an individual’s career life. The translation stage follows the formation stage and it entails using an adult role model for testing. An individual will examine whether their role model is similar or not similar to them and look into whether their attributes fit a particular occupation (Savickas et al., 2009). For instance, an individual may choose to pursue a teaching career and having her mother as a role model. He proceeds to examine the skills required for that particular career and compare it with self-concept after which he or she may decide to commit himself or reject the teaching occupation. The implementation stage involves the individual deciding whether to pursue the course at a university or join the profession.

Self-esteem is one of the meta-dimensions characterized by effective and evaluative aspects of self-concept (Sullivan & Baruch, 2009). It involves one’s subjective sense of self. Meta-dimensions can illuminate the exploration of self-concept by looking at the degree and clarity of self-esteem associated with self-description. The ability of a person to integrate interpersonal evaluation with self-concept contributes to accuracy and consistency in one’s self-esteem and self-confidence (Baumeister, 2010). The level of a person’s self-esteem concerning self-concept is a critical aspect of career decision making. For instance, a woman may view herself to be good in math and sciences and therefore decides to pursue a career related to the two subjects. However, because of the notion in the society that women are not good in the technical subjects, she may be inhibited from the capacity to construct a meaningful and highly rewarding career (Velez & Moradi, 2012). Such situations occur because of the adverse effects of gender role perceptions in the society.

Career development is a step by step process which is characterized by developing, compromising, synthesizing and implementing self-concepts which result from the interaction of inherited aptitudes, physiology and the opportunity to play various roles (Savickas et al., 2009). Self-concept is considered a combination of all the theories for career development because it evaluates the relationship between the skills and the abilities of individuals with the occupation that is to be undertaken.

Integration and Application of the Theories in Counseling Practice

Combining approaches in counseling practice enables the counselor to meet the varying needs of the clients. Some combination of theories to career development counseling meets the requirements of certain types of clients more than others, for instance, in adolescent clients where some are better than other (Sullivan & Baruch, 2009). Counselors may combine more than one theoretical approach to make the counseling process easy and satisfying to the client. Each counselor may choose to use a combination unique from other counselors. An example of such a combination is the one proposed by Laban and Turner which use of most of the theories in developing a contextually responsive career counseling approach for children in the kindergarten up to those in high school (Velez & Moradi, 2012). In this approach, they described six interrelated activities based on the various theories of career development. It gives a practical plan on how to use these methods for group or individual counseling. Theory of work adjustment is the most appropriate approach to use in helping clients develop self-efficacy. It works for the adolescent children to help them develop a right attitude towards school subjects and occupational choices (BarNir et al., 2011). Furthermore, by attending to the self-efficacy needs of the students, they avoid the barriers and the effects of outcome expectations and career goals.

Work adjustment uses a combination of values and ability measures to predict the satisfaction of an individual from a list of one hundred occupations (Baumeister, 2010). It is the only theory that has developed a profile from some occupations and gives clients a better option of developing an interest in a profession based on abilities and values (BarNir et al., 2011). The other theories only focus on career choices. Work adjustment theory combines the two aspects of career choice and work adjustment. It can be used for vocational counseling practices and other populations as well.

Combining work development and self-concept theories enables the client to have an inner understanding of oneself through self-evaluation (Baumeister, 2010). After knowing him or herself, the client is in the position to identify skills and abilities that suit a particular occupation or career. The integration of the two theories can be used to advise a client on which career path to follow since he or she has self-esteem and self-confidence in his or her abilities.

Cultural Considerations within the Theoretical Models

Research has shown that the cultural context of self-concept development view self as both defined and embedded in both the western and non-western culture. Culturally constructed self-concept evokes a lot of implications and outcome which involve cognitive, motivational and emotional processes as they relate to the professional world (Savickas et al., 2009). Such explorations raise questions about the extent to which self-concept is rooted in the culture of a particular region. The development of self-knowledge with clients differs due to the difference in cultural settings. For instance, in societies where gender roles are not a concern, students may decide to pursue any career as opposed to those that come from communities which have a prejudice in gender roles (Velez & Moradi, 2012). Career development can readily occur when there is a clear understanding of the relational and cultural matrix of self-concept development theory.

In the theory of work adjustment, the primary cultural considerations focus on group differences. For instance, there is a comprehensive scope of differences in the achievement scales between men and women in groups, whereas there is a small difference in the achievement scales in men and women. Women score higher than men in the following in achievement, policy and company practices. Men on the other hand score high in needs such as advancement, authority, and creativity. The requirements depend on the cultural settings of individual groups.

In conclusion, for appropriate career development to take place work adjustment and self-concept theories need to be combined. Counselors should prioritize in coming up with a right combination that will meet the overall needs of the client for better career counseling.

References

BarNir, A., Watson, W. E., & Hutchins, H. M. (2011). Mediation and moderated mediation in the relationship among role models, self‐efficacy, entrepreneurial career intention, and gender. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 41(2), 270-297.

Baumeister, R. F. (2010). The self. Advanced social psychology: The state of the science, 139-175.

Savickas, M. L., Nota, L., Rossier, J., Dauwalder, J. P., Duarte, M. E., Guichard, J.,... & Van Vianen, A. E. (2009). Life designing: A paradigm for career construction in the 21st century. Journal of vocational behavior, 75(3), 239-250.

Sullivan, S. E., & Baruch, Y. (2009). Advances in career theory and research: A critical review and agenda for future exploration. Journal of management, 35(6), 1542-1571.

Velez, B. L., & Moradi, B. (2012). Workplace support, discrimination, and person–organization fit: Tests of the theory of work adjustment with LGB individuals. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 59(3), 399.