Career Decision Making: Evaluating And Applying Current Theoretical Models

Due to the difficult process of career-decision making for the majority of the population, researchers have formulated four main theories to better understand the complex relationships between the different factors that influence this important decision. Self-efficacy, abilities, interests, and personality types all play a significant part in finding the right career. Interventions and other types of career assistance have also been proven to have influences on which job an individual will apply for. Holland’s Theory, the Theory of Work Adjustment (TWA), the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), and Super’s Life-Span, Life-Space Theory all attempt to organize and explain how these influences act on the outcome of career-decision making.
To illustrate how career-decision making theories work in practice, two hypothetical individuals will go through the process of the application of the different theories. “Kenny� is a twenty-two year old Asian male from an upper-middle class family. He recently graduated from a private college and is looking for the right career path. He is intellectual, curious, and very creative. He likes to help others with their problems and excels at math and science. Kenny is also a good problem

We should keep these suggestions in mind as counselors apply the theory to those of us in modern society.

To develop a more comprehensive model applying Social Cognitive Career Theory to career choice behavior Lent, Brown, and Hackett (1994) developed the Choical Model. The triadic reciprocity themes are still visually present; however, the authors also incorporate self-efficacy, outcome expectations, goals, interests, and actions into the model. A key point also illustrated in the model is the presence of both proximal and distal environmental effects (Lent, Brown, & Hacket, 2000). Distal effects are background factors that affect learning experiences that help form a person’s self-efficacy and outcome expectations. Proximal effects are those that are present during active career decision-making (interests and goals leading to actions). It is important to note that the model considers the person and decision-making process as dynamic, with actions feeding back to learning experiences; the Choical Model views the person as constantly re-evaluating their state and decisions.

John Holland’s Theory of vocational choice proposes, “Birds of the same feather flock together” (Jones, 2002). In other words, people like to be around others who have similar personalities. In choosing a career, it means that people choose jobs where they can be around people who are like them. This theory is the best known and most widely researched theory on this topic (Jones, 2002). Many career counselors also use it. In Holland’s Theory, as Sharf (2002) explains, “People express themselves, their interests and values, through their work choices and experience. In his theory, Holland assumes that people’s impressions and generalizations about work, which he refers to as stereotypes, are generally accurate” (94). By examining these stereotypes, Holland placed people and work environments to various categories.