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Occupational Choice Revisited
Children use pretend play to see themselves in future occupations. By adolescence, there is evidence early occupational preferences are related to personality. This helps explain initial preferences, but how does meaningful planning happen, and what are people preparing for? After all, we earlier acknowledged the rapidly changing nature of work and how people cannot assume they will have a stable career in which they work for the same organization throughout their working life. So how do people sort out their career options these days?
Hassling with our commute makes us think about why we work.
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Three specific theories about how people adapt themselves to their environment have influenced career construction theory (Savickas, 2020). First, Holland’s (1997) personality-type theory proposes people choose occupations to optimize the fit between their individual traits (such as personality, intelligence, skills, and abilities) and their occupational interests. Second, the notion that career development occurs in stages owes its origins to Super’s theory (1957, 1976, 1980; Super et al., 1996). Third, social cognitive career theory (SCCT) proposes career choice is a result of the application of Bandura’s social cognitive theory, especially the concept of self-efficacy. (Bandura’s ideas were discussed in Chapter 1.) Self-efficacy is an important aspect of how we construct our personal stories, one of which is about our work lives. Let’s consider these ideas in a bit more detail.
Holland categorizes occupations by the interpersonal settings in which people must function and by their associated lifestyles. He identifies six personality types that combine these factors—investigative, social, realistic, artistic, conventional, and enterprising—that he believes are optimally related to occupations.
How does Holland’s theory help us understand the continued development of occupational interests in adulthood? Fatima, the college senior in the vignette, found a good match between her outgoing nature and her major, communications. Indeed, college students of all ages prefer courses and majors that fit well with their own personalities. You are likely to be one of them. Later on, that translates into people’s desire to choose occupations and careers they like. Complementarily, SCCT also proposes people’s career choices are heavily influenced by their interests (Brown & Lent, 2016; Lent, 2013; Savvides & Stavrou, 2021). Such connections have longed been viewed as a “calling,” especially in careers related to religious ministry (Barnds, 2020).
How does SCCT explain occupational choice in practice? As explained in Figure 12.1, SCCT has two versions. The simplest includes four main factors: Self-Efficacy (your belief in your ability), Outcome Expectations (what you think will happen in a specific situation), Interests (what you like), and Choice Goals (what you want to achieve). The more complex version also includes Supports (environmental things that help you) and Barriers (environmental things that block or frustrate you). Several studies show support for the six-variable version of the model (Brown & Lent, 2016; Lent, 2020; Sheu & Phrasavath, 2019).
Figure 12.1
The four-variable (paths 1–6) and six-variable (paths 1–13) versions of the social cognitive career theory interest and choice models.
Over four decades, Donald Super (1957, 1976, 1980; Super et al., 1996) developed a theory of occupational development based on self-concept, first introduced in Chapter 9. He proposed a progression through five distinct stages during adulthood as a result of changes in individuals’ self-concept and adaptation to an occupational role: implementation, establishment, maintenance, deceleration, and retirement (see Figure 12.2). People are located along a continuum of vocational maturity through their working years; the more congruent their occupational behaviors are with what is expected of them at different ages, the more vocationally mature they are.
Figure 12.2
Super’s occupational stages during adulthood.
Super also proposed five developmental tasks, the first two (crystallization and specification) occurring primarily in adolescence. The remaining three (implementation, stabilization, and consolidation) occur over the course of adulthood. Each of the tasks in adulthood has distinctive characteristics.
· The implementation task begins in the early 20s, when people take a series of temporary jobs to learn firsthand about work roles and to try out possible career choices. Summer internships that many students use to gain experience are one example.
· The stabilization task begins in the mid-20s with selecting a specific occupation during young adulthood. It continues until the mid-30s as the person confirms the occupational choice that was made.
· The consolidation task begins in the mid-30s and continues throughout the rest of the person’s working life as they advance up the career ladder. Taking a position in a law firm and working one’s way up to partner or beginning as a salesclerk in a retail outlet and moving up to store manager are two examples.
These adult tasks overlap a sequence of developmental stages, beginning at birth and continuing during adulthood: exploratory (age 15 to 24), establishment (age 24 to 44), maintenance (age 45 to 64), and decline (age 65 and beyond). These stages reflect the overall occupational cycle from choosing what one wants to do through achieving the maximum possible in a career to the reduction in work in late adulthood.
Super’s theory originally applied to people who enter and stay in a particular career their entire adult lives and to those who change occupations. Because it is now typical for Americans to have a series of careers, Super’s notion is that we cycle and recycle through the tasks and stages as we adapt to changes in ourselves and the workplace (Super et al., 1996).
Perspectives on Theories of Career Development
How well do these theories work in actual practice, particularly in these times of rapid change in the nature, location, and stability of work careers? Certainly, the relations among occupation, personality, and demographic variables are complex (Brown & Lent, 2016; Lent, 2020; Hartung & Santilli, 2017). However, even given the lack of stable careers and the real need to change jobs frequently, there is still a strong tendency on people’s part to find occupations in which they fit and feel comfortable, and that they like (Allan et al., 2020; Brown & Lent, 2016; French-Holloway, 2020; Hartung & Santilli, 2017). As we will see later, loss of self-efficacy through job loss and long-term unemployment provides support for the role the self-statements underlying self-efficacy and SCCT.
Super and colleagues’ (1996) adaptation of traditional views of career to contemporary reality reflects a larger critique of career development theories. For example, McMahon and Arthur (2019; Arthur & McMahon, 2019) argue that context plays a very important role in what people choose to do for a living, and that these choices exist within interconnected, interactive systems (see Chapter 1 for a discussion of Bronfenbrenner’s views on these systems).
Of course, theory is one thing, and reality often differs. Selingo (2016) captured the reality of career selection when he described three general types of people. Sprinters are those who have seemingly always known what they wanted to be and do, and never vary from that path, sticking with a major, lining up internships in the field, and seeking employment that aligns with what they like and have done. Wanderers are less certain, are more likely to change majors or go back for additional degrees in different field, and are more likely to delay entering into a specific field to start a career. Stragglers tend to drift after high school from job to job, may start and stop college more than once, and tend to find their optimal career option much later, if at all. One thing is clear, though—in the longer term, career success is always related to sorting oneself out and obtaining the type of education or skills that prepare you for a career.
Occupational Development
Advancing through one’s career is not just a function of being smart and doing all of the explicit requirements of a job. It also depends on the socialization that occurs through learning the unwritten rules of an organization, in combination with one’s own expectations of what the career should entail.
Certainly, the relations among occupation, personality, and demographic variables are complex (Barrick et al., 2013; Savvides & Stavrou, 2021). However, even given the real need for career flexibility and frequent job changes, there is still a strong tendency for people to find occupations in which they feel comfortable and that they like (Lent, 2013, 2020).
Although people may have underlying tendencies that relate to certain types of occupations, unless they believe they could be successful in those occupations and careers, they are unlikely to choose them. These beliefs can be influenced by external factors. For example, occupational prestige and gender-related factors need to be taken into account (Deng et al., 2007).
Occupational Expectations
Especially in adolescence, people begin to form opinions about what working in a particular occupation will be like based on what they learn in school and from their parents, peers, other adults, and online and other media. These expectations influence what occupation(s) they eventually pick, as well as implicit career pathways.
For college students, especially first-generation students, personal experiences affect people’s opinions of themselves as they continue to refine and update their occupational expectations and development (Fouad et al., 2016; Kezar et al., 2020; Stebleton et al., 2020). This usually involves identifying an occupational goal, monitoring progress toward it, and changing or even abandoning it as necessary. Modifying the goal happens for many reasons, such as realizing interests have changed, the occupation was not a good fit for them, they never got the chance to pursue the level of education necessary to achieve the goal, or because they lack certain essential skills and do not have the opportunity to acquire them. Still other people modify their goals because of discrimination, a point we consider later in this chapter.
Research shows most people who know they have the talent, the confidence, and the opportunity to achieve their occupational and career goals often attain them. When high school students identified as academically talented were asked about their career expectations and outcomes, it turned out that 10 and even 20 years later they had been surprisingly accurate (Perrone et al., 2010).
Reality shock typically hits younger workers soon after they begin an occupation.
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In general, research shows emerging adults modify their expectations at least once, usually on the basis of new information, especially about their academic ability. The connection between adolescent expectations and adult reality reinforces the developmental aspects of occupations and careers.
Many researchers believe occupational expectations also vary by generation. Nowhere has this belief been stronger than in the supposed differences among the baby boom generation (born between 1946 and 1964), generation X (born between 1965 and 1980), the millennial generation (born between 1981 and 1996), and generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) (Deloitte, 2020; Pew Research Center, 2018b). By the mid-2020s, the global workforce will be dominated by millennials (many of whom will be middle-aged by then) and gen Z.
Perhaps the most important factor to keep in mind about millennials and gen Z is that they have grown up and come of age during the worst economic and socio-health crises in more than a century—the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic downturns. Research and analysis (Deloitte, 2020; Pew Research Center, 2018b; Porter & Yaffe-Bellany, 2020) indicate that both generations are less financially secure (e.g., less employment security, higher student debt) than were baby boomers and gen Xers at the same age, and believe that success in life is more due to luck than to effort. Nearly half say they are stressed most of the time, and they agree that their loyalty to an organization increases the more the organization responds to worker needs (from diversity and inclusion to sustainability and reskilling).
The importance of occupational expectations can be seen clearly in the transition from school to the workplace (Moen, 2016a, 2016b; Moen & Roehling, 2005). The 21st-century workplace is not one where hard work and long hours necessarily lead to a better outcome. It can be a place where you experience reality shock , a situation in which what you learn in the classroom does not always transfer directly into the “real world” and does not represent all you need to know. When reality shock sets in, things do not seem to happen the way we expect. Reality shock befalls everyone. You can imagine how a new teacher feels when their long hours preparing a lesson result in students who act bored and unappreciative of their efforts.
Many professions, such as nursing and teaching, have gone to great lengths to alleviate reality shock (Graf et al., 2020; Hinton & Chirgwin, 2010; Shayshon & Popper-Giveon, 2017). This problem is one best addressed through internship, apprenticeship, and practicum experiences for students under the careful guidance of experienced people in the field.
The Role of Mentors and Coaches
Entering an occupation involves more than the relatively short formal training a person receives. Instead, most people are oriented by a more experienced person who makes a specific effort to do this, taking on the role of a mentor or coach.
A mentor is part teacher, sponsor, model, and counselor who facilitates on-the-job learning to help the new hire do the work required in their present role and to prepare for future career roles (Cavanaugh & Cavanaugh, 2018; Volpe et al., 2016). A developmental or executive coach is an individual who helps a person focus on their goals, motivations, and aspirations to help them achieve focus and apply them appropriately (Cavanaugh & Cavanaugh, 2018; Hunt & Weintraub, 2016). Mentoring and coaching are viewed as primary ways that organizations invest in developing their talent and future leadership (Cavanaugh & Cavanaugh, 2018; Smits & Bowden, 2013). Although mentors and coaches work with people at all career stages, mentoring is found most often with people new to a position, whereas coaching is used at all levels of experience.
The mentor helps a new worker avoid trouble by sharing invaluable information about the unwritten rules governing day-to-day activities in the workplace and how to be sensitive to the employment situation. A review of mentoring programs showed that good mentors make sure their mentees are noticed and receive credit from supervisors for good work, and mentoring programs generally improve the performance of mentees. Thus, occupational success often depends on the quality of the mentor–mentee relationship and the mentee’s perceptions of its importance (Giacumo et al., 2020).
What do mentors get from the relationship? Helping a less experienced employee learn the job is one way to achieve Erikson’s phase of generativity (see Chapter 13; Marcia & Josselson, 2013). Surprisingly, little research has been done regarding whether mentoring programs improve organizational performance (Giacumo et al., 2020).
Coaching is a process that helps people make fundamental changes in their lives by focusing on general skill development and performance improvement (Cavanaugh & Cavanaugh, 2018; Volpe et al., 2016). It tends not to focus on specific aspects of a job; rather, the intent is more general understanding of oneself and improvement of one’s overall career success. Thus, coaching complements mentoring and helps people develop all of the key aspects of themselves. Consequently, coaching is a process that is applicable and useful at any point in one’s adult life.
The need to adapt traditional models of mentoring and coaching to the needs of millennials and gen Z’ers, as well as for women and historically marginalized groups has resulted in creative new approaches such as reverse mentoring and micro-mentoring (Ainsworth, 2020; Blancero & Cotton-Nessler, 2017; Germain, 2020; Ortiz-Walters & Gilson, 2013). Reverse mentoring occurs when a more senior, experienced professional is paired with a colleague who may vary in experience, background, or perspective such that the senior professional becomes the mentee and the other professional serves as the mentor. A common example of reverse mentoring occurs when a member of gen Z trains a gen X-er on the latest social media app. A variation of this is reciprocal mentoring when each member of the pair switch mentor and mentee roles from time to time depending on the situation. Micro-mentoring occurs when a more knowledgeable or experienced worker serves as a mentor on a specific task. A good example is when one worker helps another who is temporarily stuck on a problem, or introduces a coworker to a senior leader in the profession at a conference.
When paired with mentors and coaches, women and employees in historically underrepresented groups show better career trajectories, both perceived and real (Adams-Harmon & Greer-Williams, 2021; Ransdell et al., 2021; Schulz & Enslin, 2014). It is also critical to adopt culturally conscious approaches to mentoring and coaching to maximize the benefits (Campinha-Bacote, 2010; Kochan & Freeman, 2020). Culturally conscious mentoring and coaching involves understanding how an organization’s and employee’s cultures mutually affect each other, and explicitly building those assumptions, interrelationships, and behaviors into the mentoring or coaching process.
Women employees typically prefer and may achieve more from a female mentor.
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Despite the evidence that having a mentor or coach has many positive effects on workers’ occupational development, there is an important caveat: the quality of the mentor or coach really matters (Baran & Zarzycki, 2021; Tong & Kram, 2013; Volpe et al., 2016). Having a poor mentor or coach is worse than having no mentor or coach at all. Consequently, people must be carefully matched. It is in the best interest of the organization to get the match correct. How can workers be matched more effectively? Some organizations have taken a page from dating and created speed mentoring and coaching as a way to create better matches (Ramani et al., 2020).
Job Satisfaction
What does it mean to be satisfied with one’s job? Job satisfaction is the positive feeling that results from an appraisal of one’s work. Research indicates that job satisfaction is a multifaceted concept in which certain characteristics—including hope, resilience, optimism, and self-efficacy—predict both job performance and job satisfaction. This research has resulted in the creation of psychological capital theory , the notion that having a positive outlook improves processes and outcomes (Luthans et al., 2007; Tefera & Hunsaker, 2021; Youssef-Morgan & Luthans, 2013).
Satisfaction with some aspects of one’s job increases gradually with age, and successful aging includes a workplace component (Kooij et al., 2020). Why is this? Is it because people sort themselves out and end up in occupations they like? Is it that they simply learn to like the occupation they are in? What other factors matter?
How does job satisfaction evolve over young and middle adulthood? Research shows, given sufficient time, most people eventually find a job in which they are reasonably happy (David, 2021; Hom & Kinicki, 2001). Optimistically, this indicates there is a job out there, somewhere, in which you will be happy. That’s good, because research grounded in positive psychology theory indicates happiness fuels success (Achor, 2010; Chai, 2021).
It’s also true that job satisfaction does not increase in all areas and job types with age. White-collar professionals show an increase in job satisfaction with age, whereas those in blue-collar positions generally do not, and these findings hold with both men and women (Aasland et al., 2010; Mooser et al., 2020). This is also true across cultures. A study of Filipino and Taiwanese workers in lower-level jobs in the long-term healthcare industry in Taiwan showed workers with 4- or 5-years’ experience had lower job satisfaction than workers with less experience, but job satisfaction among physicians in Norway increases over time and with opportunities to expand the type of tasks one does (Aasland et al., 2010; Huang et al., 2020; Mooser et al., 2020; Tu, 2006). The decline over time may well reflect whether the organization is perceived to be supportive of its workers (Huang et al., 2020).
However, the changes in the labor market resulting in frequent job changes and a lower likelihood of having a long career with one organization have changed the traditional notions of job satisfaction (Bidwell, 2013; Murphy & Tierney, 2020). Specifically, the fact that companies may eliminate jobs and workers not based on performance, but on other grounds such as comments on social media, for instance, makes it more difficult for employees to develop a sense of organizational commitment, thereby making the relationship between worker age and job satisfaction more complicated (Abrams et al., 2016; Douglas & Roberts, 2020).
Also complicating traditional relations between job satisfaction and age is the fact that the type of job one has and the kinds of family responsibilities one has at different career stages—as well as the flexibility of work options such as telecommuting and family leave benefits to accommodate those responsibilities—influence the relationship between age and job satisfaction, but which are issues that human resource departments can address (Visser et al., 2021). For instance, family caregiving responsibilities may collide with work demands, resulting in lower job satisfaction, especially if the employer has no flexible work options nor paid family leave benefits to accommodate the employee’s needs (Paulson et al., 2017). This suggests the accumulation of experience, changing context, and the stage of one’s career development all influence job satisfaction over time. The general increase in job satisfaction, then, may reflect the reality of workers figuring out how to manage their lives, understanding the limited alternative options they have, or taking advantage of alternative work assignments, such as telecommuting.
Alienation and Burnout
High-stress jobs such as intensive care nursing often result in burnout.
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When workers feel what they are doing is meaningless and their efforts are devalued, or when they do not see the connection between what they do and the final product, a sense of alienation is likely to result. Terkel (1974) reported employees are most likely to feel alienated when they perform routine, repetitive actions. Alienation can also result from employees feeling abandoned by their employer, such as experiencing long periods without pay increases.
To help their workers avoid feelings of alienation, it is essential for organizations to provide ways for people to feel connected to each other and to the organization (Jung et al., 2021). Research also indicates that leaders who show trust and behave ethically are key (Bachman, 2017; Bligh, 2017), as is a perception among employees that the employer deals with people fairly and impartially (Howard & Cordes, 2010; Palumbo & Manna, 2020). It is also helpful to involve employees in the decision-making process, create flexible work schedules, and institute employee development and enhancement programs.
Sometimes the pace and pressure of the occupation becomes more than a person can bear. Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. Burnout can make you feel emotionally and physically drained and unable to function in the context of many aspects of life, not just in your job. Burnout can lower your motivation and cause you to feel helpless, hopeless, and resentful (Queen & Harding, 2020).
Burnout is most common among people in the helping professions—such as teaching, social work, and health care (Bermejo-Toro et al., 2016; Queen & Harding, 2020). During the pandemic, evidence of burnout in the helping professions was everywhere. Take a moment to reflect on the experiences described in the Real People feature to understand better how burnout can devastate entire professions.
Burnout has several bad effects on the brain such as weakened connections between the amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, and prefrontal cortex (Golkar et al., 2014; Michel, 2016). These changes have been related to problematic behavior. For instance, burnout in physicians has been shown to create changes in key areas of the brain connected to complex decision making, which in turn is connected to increased medical errors (Manji et al., 2021). The effects of burnout are clearly serious, with life-threatening consequences in certain circumstances. As noted in the Real People feature, one particularly troublesome aspect of pandemic-related burnout was that simple behaviors that could have significantly reduced the levels and extent of burnout—wearing a mask and keeping physical distance—were simply not done by many people for a variety of reasons. The consequences of such actions, which may not have been understood or considered, were nonetheless very real.
Interestingly, though, burnout does not affect everyone in a particular profession. Why? Vallerand (2015; Lavoie et al., 2021) proposes the difference relates to people feeling different types of passion (obsessive and harmonious) toward their jobs. A passion is a strong inclination toward an activity individuals like (or even love), they value (and thus find important), and where they invest time and energy (Vallerand, 2015). Vallerand’s Passion Model proposes people develop a passion toward enjoyable activities that are incorporated into identity.
Vallerand’s model differentiates between two kinds of passion: obsessive and harmonious. A critical aspect of obsessive passion is the internal urge to engage in the passionate activity, which makes it difficult for the person to fully disengage from thoughts about the activity, leading to conflict with other activities in the person’s life (Vallerand, 2015). Such beliefs and an “all in” approach may also be detrimental to one’s career. O’Keefe and colleagues (2018) and Lavoie and colleagues (2021) found that those who believe passion is something to discover rather than to develop, and were encouraged to find their passion, tend to put all of their eggs in one basket career-wise and are more likely to abandon their career choice when the going gets tough.
Real People: Applying Human Development
Burnout on the Front Lines of Health Care
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers were viewed with admiration as frontline heroes; many communities celebrated them each day with various types of demonstrations, such as ringing bells or banging on pots. But as those celebrations faded with time, the toll on healthcare workers began to be apparent. By August 2020, only about 6 months into the pandemic, 8% of physicians had already closed their practices due to burnout and related reasons (Physicians Foundation, 2020). What happened?
Andrew Jacobs (2021), a reporter for the New York Times, sought some answers. The stories he heard were all similar. After months of dealing with the nonstop onslaught of COVID patients, cuts in pay due to the loss of revenue from the stoppage of other medical procedures, and the frustration with people who disregarded mask-wearing and physical distancing, Dr. Sheetal Khedkar Rao, an internist from Chicago, closed her practice to spend more time with her young children as they switched to remote learning. Celia Nieto, an intensive care nurse in Las Vegas, said many Americans “had scant appreciation for the tribulations that she and her colleagues face day after day. There is the physical exhaustion of lifting and turning patients on their bellies so they might breathe easier, the never-ending scramble to adjust ventilators and pain medication, and the mental anguish of telling relatives she doesn’t have the time to help them FaceTime with their loved ones.” Dr. Erica Bial, a pain specialist from suburban Boston who barely survived COVID-19, said, “We put on our masks and come to work every day because we don’t have the luxury of working from home in our pajamas, but the apathy and ennui that’s taken hold of society just makes our job feel thankless. It’s so demoralizing.”
These individuals, and thousands more, reflect the result of unrelenting pressure of life-and-death decisions, the helpless feelings of watching people die alone, and what appeared to them as an uncaring attitude on the part of people who disregarded preventive measures. As noted in the text, burnout has serious negative effects on brain function, health, and attitude; it can lead to stress-related physical and mental health problems.
As the pandemic continued, critical shortages in healthcare workers not only had implications for patient care in hospitals, but also for the rollout of vaccines. Despite the urgent need, none of the federal programs meant to provide assistance for those affected by the pandemic directly targeted healthcare workers, or focused on ways to speed the credentialing process.
A key question emerging from these experiences is: How many people will still want to pursue a healthcare career knowing the potential consequences and the likelihood of another pandemic? Without specific programs that address the high risk of burnout, it may be difficult to meet the need for many more healthcare workers.
In contrast, harmonious passion results when individuals do not feel compelled to engage in the enjoyable activity; rather, they freely choose to do so, and it is in harmony with other aspects of the person’s life (Vallerand, 2015). These individuals seek balance in their lives and cycle through a number of enjoyable activities about which they are passionate.
Research in France and Canada indicates the Passion Model accurately predicts employees’ feelings of burnout (Vallerand, 2008; Vallerand et al., 2010). As shown in Figure 12.3, obsessive passion predicts higher levels of conflict that in turn predicts higher levels of burnout. In contrast, harmonious passion predicts higher levels of satisfaction at work and predicts lower levels of burnout.
Figure 12.3
Model of the relations among passion, satisfaction at work, conflict, and burnout. Harmonious passion predicts higher levels of satisfaction at work that predict lower levels of burnout. In contrast, obsessive passion predicts higher levels of conflict that predict higher levels of burnout.
Source: Vallerand et al., 2010.
The best ways to lower burnout are intervention programs that focus on both the organization and the employee (Bagnall et al., 2016; Cohen-Serrins, 2021) and foster an emphasis on developing (rather than seeking and finding) passion (Lavoie et al., 2021; O’Keefe et al., 2018; Vallerand, 2015). At the organizational level, job restructuring and employee-provided programs are important. For employees, prioritizing self-care (such as sleep and stress-reduction techniques), setting boundaries regarding other people’s expectations, cognitive restructuring of the work situation, and finding alternative ways to enhance personal growth and identity are most effective (Allexandre et al., 2016).