How to Optimize the Job Search Process: Development and Validation of the Job Search Quality Scale

Job search quality is important for unemployed individuals pursuing reemployment. To comprehensively measure job search quality, we develop and test a 20-item Job Search Quality Scale (JSQS), using four samples of unemployed individuals (pilot sample, N=218; exploration sample, N=3372; confirmation sample, N=3372; and replication sample, N=434). Results show a four-dimensional structure, composed of (a) goal establishment and planning, (b) preparation and alignment, (c) emotion regulation and persistence, and (d) learning and improvement. Substantial evidence was found for its reliability, convergent and discriminant validity. Building job search quality’s nomological net, conscientiousness, learning goal orientation, self-efficacy, employment commitment, autonomous job search motivation, and social support emerged as positive correlates. Supporting its criterion-related validity, the JSQS predicted key job search and employment outcomes. Moreover, usefulness analyses supported its incremental validity beyond extant job search measures. Our findings have important implications for studying and measuring job search quality in future research and career counseling practice.

Development and Validation of the Career Identity Development Inventory

The primary aims of this study were to address existing measurement concerns in the neo-Eriksonian identity literature and fill a gap in the vocational identity literature by developing and validating the Career Identity Development Inventory (CIDI). As the processes of identity formation and career development share close conceptual ties, we introduced an integrated conceptual model of career identity development from which CIDI was developed to be comprised of two subscales, CIDI-E and CIDI-C, that were each composed of four career identity dimensions. In Study 1, we delineated how CIDI was constructed and reported initial evidence of validity and reliability using a sample of 398 US college graduates. We further tested the psychometric properties of CIDI in Study 2 using confirmatory factor analyses with another sample of 419 US college graduates. Implications for using CIDI at the variable and person level, and future research directions are provided to further the understanding of the career identity development process.

Career Goal Discrepancy, Career Distress, and Goal Adjustment: Testing a Dual Moderated Process Model in Young Adults

Identifying a large discrepancy in young people’s career goal progress can lead to distress, activating meaning-making, self-regulatory mechanisms aimed at resolving the uncomfortable situation. We assessed these important career-regulatory processes in a theoretical model by testing the indirect effects of career goal discrepancy on goal adjustment (assimilation and accommodation) via career distress, and assessed the conditionality of these effects based on two moderators (career calling and negative career feedback). In a cross-sectional study, we recruited 287 young adults with a mean age of 23.79 years ( SD = 3.35), and tested complex dual moderated process model (OLS regression). Greater career goal discrepancy was associated with more career distress, and, in turn, less assimilative and more accommodative tendencies. These indirect effects depended on the level of career calling and negative career feedback. The findings can be used to tailor interventions to optimise the consequences of identified gaps in young people’s career progress.

Why Does Psychological Capital Foster Subjective and Objective Career Success? The Mediating Role of Career-Specific Resources

The present study investigates the relationship of PsyCap with objective and subjective career success. Based on conservation of resources theory (COR Theory) and psychological capital theory (PsyCap Theory), we assume that career-specific resources, in particular protean career attitude, career planning, and internal and external networking, are important mechanisms that mediate the relationship between PsyCap and both outcomes. We tested our assumptions by means of time-lagged path analysis with R and the lavaan package in a sample of 1110 German academic scientists. Our results indicate a positive relationship between PsyCap and career success. However, we found differential effects regarding the assumed mediation for subjective and objective career success. The effect of PsyCap on subjective career success is mediated by protean career attitude and career planning. The effect of PsyCap on objective career success is mediated by external networking. Our results strengthen the research of PsyCap as a predictor of career success. However, the results also imply that the relationship between PsyCap, career-specific resources, and both aspects of career success is more complex than expected.

Judging What Others Enjoy: Desirability and Observability of Interests

Interests guide major life decisions such as choosing a career path, yet little is known about the subjective characteristics of individual differences in interests. Prior research on personality traits has demonstrated that subjective trait perceptions influence the validity and reliability of personality assessments. The current work expands the study of these subjective characteristics to individual differences in interests. Desirability and observability were assessed among 13 constructs: person orientation, thing orientation, RIASEC career interests, and Big Five traits. Judgments of interest dimensions varied considerably, with socially-related interests rated more desirable than thing-related interests. Some career-related interests were low in observability, and thus may be susceptible to being overlooked or categorized inaccurately. The patterns observed in interest characteristics were comparable to patterns in career choice hit rates, occupational prestige, and self-other convergence. The findings advance knowledge of differences between interest dimensions and suggest that subjective perceptions should be considered in interest assessment.

Silent but Damaging: Exploring the Link Between Air Pollution and Vocational and General Well-Being

Air pollution has become a daunting challenge with the potential to endanger people’s lives across the globe. However, little is known about the psychological and vocational implications of air pollution. Drawing on feeling-as-information theory, we investigate the within-person relationships of ambient air pollution with vocational and general well-being outcomes (i.e., career choice anxiety and state optimism) through the mediating mechanism of mood state. We tested our hypotheses using an experience sampling method (ESM) with survey data from 67 undergraduate students in South Korea collected over 10 consecutive days. Results showed that daily ambient air pollution predicted higher career choice anxiety and lower state optimism via an increased negative mood. Furthermore, the indirect relation of air pollution with career choice anxiety was found to be stronger for individuals with lower family socioeconomic status. In a supplementary study, we interviewed 16 undergraduate students in South Korea to explain the ESM results in greater depth. Theoretical and practical implications, as well as study limitations, are discussed.

Service Workers’ Well-Being During COVID-19: A Strengths-Based Inclusive Theory of Work Perspective

This study tested the Strengths-Based Inclusive Theory of Work (S-BIT of Work), a vocational theory that emphasizes positive psychological and cultural factors, among a sample of service industry workers during COVID-19. Service industry workers ( N = 320) were recruited via social media sources across the United States, and structural equation modeling was used to examine the model. This model included privilege and COVID-19 impact as contextual variables; organizational support and workplace dignity as promotive workplace variables; hope, strengths use, adaptability, empowerment, and perceived COVID-19 threat as individual variables; and fulfilling work and psychological distress as outcome variables. Privilege and workplace dignity were identified as particularly important variables; results suggested privilege was positively associated with a promotive work context and negatively related to psychological distress. Additionally, the greater the amount of privilege and dignity the service industry workers experienced, the greater their positive individual characteristics were able to flourish.

Academic Majors and HEXACO Personality

Self-reports on the HEXACO-PI-R scales were examined in relation to academic majors in post-secondary education ( N > 73,000). Openness to Experience showed the largest mean differences across academic major areas, with the Visual/Performing Arts and Humanities areas averaging higher and Health Sciences and Business/Commerce averaging lower. Emotionality showed the second largest differences, with the Engineering and Physical Sciences/Math areas averaging lower and Visual/Performing Arts averaging higher; these differences in Emotionality became smaller in within-sex analyses. In addition, Extraversion tended to be higher for Business/Commerce and lower for Physical Sciences/Math, while Honesty-Humility was lower for Business/Commerce. The facet-level analyses provided additional detail, as facet scales in the same domain sometimes showed considerably different means within a given academic major area. In one case, Visual/Performing Art majors averaged lower in Prudence, but higher in Perfectionism, even though both facets belong to the Conscientiousness domain.

Openness to Experience and the Career Adaptability of Refugees: How Do Career Optimism and Family Social Support Matter?

The present study examines the antecedents of the career adaptability of people from a refugee background. Drawing on career construction theory, it specifically examines whether openness to experience fosters career adaptability through enhancing career optimism. In addition, it examines whether family social support moderates the relationship between openness to experience and career optimism, and moderates the mediated relationship between openness to experience and career adaptability through career optimism. Analysis of three waves of data from people from a refugee background seeking employment in metropolitan Australia found support for the hypothesized relationships. In particular, career optimism was found to fully mediate the relationship between openness to experience and career adaptability. In addition, family social support was found to substitute for low levels of openness to experience.

Learning Goal Orientation and Academic Performance: A Dynamic model

Drawing on the reciprocal determinism of self-regulation system, a process-based model is used to examine the relationship of learning goal orientation (LGO) among university students with their academic performance, via reciprocal relationships between initial status and change trajectories in academic self-efficacy and feedback-seeking behaviors. A longitudinal study of 316 Chinese university students throughout their first year in college reveals that students who have high LGO in their first month after entering the university generally have higher academic self-efficacy and seek more feedback. Moreover, initial levels of feedback seeking are positively related to academic performance via linear change in academic self-efficacy over time. Limitations of the study and practical implications are discussed.