Factors of Career Selection - Essay Example

Factors of Career Selection. Career Development Theories. al affiliation It is possible to enumerate many career development theories, but the aim of most of them is to find out professional interests. It may be called one of the most important factors of professional satisfaction. There are many reasons which may impede the adequate choice of career. It may be social factors, which deprive people of an opportunity to choose profession according to their own interest. Sometimes it may be certain psychological factors – people often misconceive their own abilities or essence of the targeted professional sphere. According to the statistics, dominant professional interests of almost 70% of adolescents lie outside of the chosen profession. It is obvious that it will exert strong influence on the effectiveness of educational process and further professional activity. Thus, the problem of career selection is really acute. The authors of career development theories try to solve this problem. First of all, it is worthy to mention John Holland’s theory, elaborated in 1966. It assumes that the choice of profession is predetermined by personality type and type of environment. According to the theory of James Marcia, the attitude towards the choice of profession, religions and political views, and value priorities depends of the identity status. Donald Super provides one more theory. According to it, self-conception may be regarded the most important determinant of career path. Many other factors may influence the career selection. Gender stereotypes assert significant impact over this process, though it tends to weaken in contemporary world. Inherited genes may predetermine entrepreneurial spirit, possessed by concrete individual. Family and parent view may turn to be determinant factor of profession selection too. Key words: career development theories, career selection, professional interests, professional activity. Factors of Career Selection. Career Development Theories. The choice of profession may be defined as a conscious selection of a certain sphere of activity, which would become a long-terms source profit. Enormously huge labour market of our time comprises more than 20 thousand professions and approximately 40 thousand specialties. That is why such procedure as aptitude screening is in high demand now. It helps people understand if they are capable to obtain necessary skills and knowledge which would make their further professional activity effective and productive. Contemporary psychologists use a wide range of guidance tests, technologies, and strategies. The science of career guidance emerged approximately 100 years ago. One of the most remarkable contributions to this science belongs to John Holland, an American psychologist. His theory, elaborated in 1966, is especially noticeable since it takes into consideration both the personality theory and the theory of profession selection. Holland insists that the effectiveness of any activity depends on value priorities, interests, moral principles, and motives. Holland assumes that the success in any professional activity depends on the correspondence between personality type and type of professional environment. Thus, human behavior is predetermined by character traits and environment within the sphere of human activities. People strive to find such a professional environment which would correspond to their personality type. It would let people discover their own talents and potential. According to Holland, it is possible to distinguish 6 personality types. These are realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional types. Realistic orientation is more typical of men, rather than of women. It is characterized by activity (both physical and mental), certain aggressiveness, well-developed motor skills. Such people are good while solving various practical tasks. The choice of profession may be related to craft activities, engineering, agriculture, and forest management. They like dealing with machines and instruments. As a rule, these are people of strong constitution. Investigative type is in a greater degree oriented on intellectual work. These people are interested in abstract issues, symbolic operation, and information. As a rule, they demonstrate little interest in physical and social activities. They tend to be self-sufficient, that is why they feel small need of frequent communication with other people. This type may be good at natural sciences and math. People of social type are effective in such processes as communication, education, upbringing, and consulting. They possess well-developed verbal and social abilities, sense of responsibility, emotionality, and activity. They like dealing with social problems and helping other people, that is why they may fulfil their potential in pedagogics, social security services, practical psychology, service sector, etc. Those people who prefer structured verbal or symbolic activities belong to conventional type. This type avoids uncertain situations, social activities, and physical labor. They prefer spheres of banking services, bookkeeping, and statistics. Monotonous and routine work does not make such people feel tired. They also prefer to follow given instructions and avoid improvisation. Enterprising type possesses strength of mind, self-discipline, verbal abilities, self-confidence, and competitiveness. Its representatives avoid monotonous intellectual work. Instead, they enjoy working with people and organizing their activities. People of this type usually work in hotel and tourist business, jurisprudence. Most of entrepreneurs belong to this type as well. Artistic type presupposes orientation on art and self-expression. Its representatives avoid monotonous and physical activities. People of this type are often diffident and sensitive. They like working in creative atmosphere, using imagination and artistic skills. Of course, they prefer to work in the sphere of culture. Each type is to be regarded an idealized, hypothetic construction used in order to portrait certain groups of people, possessing similar personal and professional characteristics. This classification may be used as a standard, which a person may be compared to. Accordingly, there are 6 types of environment. Certain type of personality dominates in the corresponding environment. People are looking for such an environment which would let them exercise their skills, gain new knowledge and experiences, demonstrate their personal values and conviction, solve adequate problems and tasks. Thus, Holland regards personal interests to be of primary importance in the process of career selection. He insists that first of all it is necessary to define the sphere of activity, suitable for a concrete person, and then it would be possible to help this person find certain profession within this sphere. He has elaborated a specific test, which is used to define personality types. The results of this test give ground to recommend specific types of activities or even hobbies. Nevertheless, this theory makes no reckoning of dynamics in professional fields. Besides, it neglects variability of motives and values of people. It considers personal interests to be of crucial significance, but it totally ignores social needs and labour market situation. One more theory of career development was offered by an American psychologist Donald Super in 1952. His theory of career development considers profession selection to be a process, represented by a phase of professional development. He assumes that self-conception is constantly evolving in the course of human life. In other words, Super correlates professional development of people with their personal maturity and level of self-realization. According to this theory, the choice of a certain profession may be reckoned as a way of self-expression. Super insists that different stages of life predetermine the principles and priorities while making a choice of a career path. Young people, who are about to choose their further career path and educational institution, have much wider range of available professions in comparison to those who have already obtained professional education. Family is one more important factor. The variety of professions, available for those people who have families, is also limited. Range of choice is also different for the representatives of different social classes. At the same time, it is necessary to take into consideration that almost all the Super’s conclusions lack concreteness. His definition of self-conception is rather blurred as well. It gives Super’s followers an opportunity to reinterpret this term. The author did not even try to make it sound clearer – he referred to the works by G. Allport, an American psychologist. In his works it is possible to find more than 4 thousand characteristics of a person. If to reconsider this notion within the context of social, economic, and political factors, the number of personal characteristics will be unlimited. It is also necessary to mention James Marcia, a developmental psychologist, and his identity theory. Within this theory Marcia distinguishes four states of identity, which may be considered as steps of professional self-determination. Thus, there are four identity statuses: foreclosure, identity diffusion, moratorium, and identity achievement. During the status of foreclosure adolescents choose their profession, religious views, principles, and other aspects of their identity. At the same time, all these choices are made under the influence of their parents or teachers. A teenager may want to be a doctor just because his parents are doctors. Thus, teenagers possess rather clear vision of their future profession, which is imposed by some of the adults. Identity diffusion is the status of individuals who have no life direction or any discerned intention to achieve it. Some of them are obsessed by immediate satisfaction of their desires and needs. Others tend to make experiments, but have no concrete plans or aims. In general, they have no clear vision of their further life path and profession. Moratorium is a crisis of identity. Adolescents make various decisions concerning their future professions, religious and ethical values, and political views. They tend to criticize many previous opinions and decisions. Individuals realize the problem of career selection and start making efforts to solve it. Finally, identity achievement is the status of those adolescents who have gone through the crisis and assumed their obligations. They choose their future profession according to the moral code they have elaborated. Identity achievement is considered to be the most essential, mature, and desirable status. In general, Marcia’s theory seems to be rather sustainable. Nevertheless, its opponents assume that “The four statuses do not operate in a developmental sequence...(b) conscious exploration is not required for and often does not occur in identity achievement; and (c) numerous studies conducted in support of the statuses focus less on developmental issues and more on classification issues” (Miller 2006). A number of different factors may assert influence on profession selection. For example, genes. British scientists have proved genes to have influence over career choice. Disposition towards entrepreneurial activities may be inherited. Besides, genes may influence the formation of character traits, which may help achieve success in business. In addition, gender stereotypes is a really influential factor too. Those professions, which are considered to be typically male, are associated with rational thinking, proactive attitude to life, and entrepreneurship. The concept of female professions is associated with social and communicative skills, emotional support, and empathy. Achievement drive is one of the most prioritized universal values of contemporary life. It unites both male and female preferences. For example, servicewomen turned to possess higher level of sociability, courage, and self-control in comparison to male representatives within this sphere. References Holland, J. (1984). Making Vocational Choices: A Theory of Vocational Personalities and Work Environments. NJ: Prentice Hall. Kernis, M. H., Cornell, D. P., Sun, C. R., Berry, A., Harlow, T., & Bach, J. S. (1993). 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Handbook of vocational psychology: Theory, research and practice. NJ: Erlbaum. Read More