Purpose
Virtually all contemporary scientific papers studying careers emphasize its changing nature. Indeed, careers have been changing during recent decades, for example becoming more complex and ...unpredictable. Furthermore, hallmarks of the new career – such as individual agency – are clearly increasing in importance in today’s labor market. This led the authors to ask the question of whether these changes are actually visible in the topics that career scholars research. In other words, the purpose of this paper is to discover the trending topics in careers.
Design/methodology/approach
To achieve this goal, the authors analyzed all published papers from four core career journals (i.e. Career Development International, Career Development Quarterly, Journal of Career Assessment, and Journal of Career Development) between 2012 and 2016. Using a five-step procedure involving three researchers, the authors formulated the 16 most trending topics.
Findings
Some traditional career topics are still quite popular today (e.g. career success as the #1 trending topic), whereas other topics have emerged during recent years (e.g. employability as the #3 trending topic). In addition, some topics that are closely related to career research – such as unemployment and job search – surprisingly turned out not to be a trending topic.
Originality/value
In reviewing all published papers in CDI, CDQ, JCA, and JCD between 2012 and 2016, the authors provide a unique overview of currently trending topics, and the authors compare this to the overall discourse on careers. In addition, the authors formulate key questions for future research.
International scientific mobility and research careers are two concepts that are intimately related. Yet, it has been very difficult for scholarship to pinpoint exactly how international mobility ...impacts on research careers. This paper contributes to this question by investigating links between international mobility, research career stage progression and job changes. It does so using a large-scale survey (MORE) which targets researchers based in European universities. The results establish that the profile of international mobility varies by academic research career stage. They also show that for researchers in the established mid-career phase who are working internationally, there are career advancement benefits associated with return mobility to their home country. However, these benefits may reduce if the timing of return is too delayed. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of these results for researcher mobility policy in the context of the European Higher Education Area and the European Research Area.
The protean/boundaryless career concepts refer to people becoming more self-directed and flexible in managing their careers in response to societal shifts in work arrangements. A sizable literature ...has emerged on protean/boundaryless career orientations/preferences (PBCO). Questions remain, however, about the structure of PBCO and whether they predict important criteria. The PBCO literature is largely disconnected from broader individual-level career research, making it unclear how PBCO intersect with career models based on other characteristics. We address these questions by systematically reviewing/meta-analyzing PBCO research. On the basis of 135 demographically/occupationally diverse samples from 35 countries (45,288 individuals), we find no support for traditional distinctions between protean and boundaryless orientations-protean self-directed, protean values-driven, and boundaryless psychological mobility all load onto a single general factor, labeled proactive career orientation, and are only weakly related to boundaryless physical mobility preferences. We also find that PBCO predict career self-management behaviors and career satisfaction but are less related to non-career-focused attitudes, objective success, or physical mobility behavior. PBCO are strongly related to proactivity-related and self-efficacy personality traits. We use these findings to propose an integrative model for how PBCO and other dispositions mutually influence career behavior. We discuss when PBCO may have advantages over broad traits for understanding careers, implications for counseling practice, and directions for future research.
Public Significance Statement
People with a proactive career orientation (taking charge of their careers) report higher career satisfaction and self-management behavior. Much of proactive career orientation's explanatory power is shared with personality traits, but proactive career orientation may be easier to change through counseling interventions than broad traits.
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This paper addresses the limited empirical analysis of higher education students’ perceptions of contemporary labour market demands. It explores their perspectives on the health of the graduate ...labour market, what factors determine these and how their perceptions relate to self-perceived employability, career proactivity, career control and efforts to develop positional advantage. Further, the study examines determinants of students’ career planning, all in the context of a challenging graduate labour market and higher education systems that have become more market-driven. The paper draws on evidence from a survey among Australian and UK students (N = 433), from two institutions and across a range of disciplines. Data revealed a number of significant findings. Overall, students who reported more positive perceptions of the current labour market were more likely to develop higher self-perceptions of employability, believe they had a greater sense of control over their career yet were less engaged with proactive career behaviours. Students perceived employability, their sense of career control and their reported career proactivity positively determined their engagement in career planning. The study enhances our understanding of the impact of labour market demand-side factors on student approaches to careers. It raises significant implications for universities and their career practitioners in identifying ways of enhancing students’ career planning strategies within a more challenging labour market context.
Career and Career Guidance in the Nordic Countries explores what kind of context the Nordic region offers for the pursuit of career, how the development of careers are supported and how career ...guidance is enacted in this context.; Readership: All interested in career and career development, including students, researchers, practitioners and policy makers. There will also be important secondary audiences amongst scholars of wider education and employment practice, particularly in the Nordic countries.
Based on career construction theory, this study examined the contribution of career adaptability to career choice satisfaction, with career decision‐making self‐efficacy as a mediator and ...socioeconomic status as a moderator. Nine hundred and fourteen Chinese final‐year undergraduates were recruited. The results revealed that career adaptability directly influenced career choice satisfaction and indirectly through career decision‐making self‐efficacy, with some specific differences based on socioeconomic status. Particularly, the cooperation dimension of career adaptability was found to be negatively related to career choice satisfaction only among undergraduates with higher socioeconomic status. The findings have implications for research on career construction theory as well as for career education and counseling practices in universities.
Using the career adaptability framework of Savickas and Porfeli (2012), we examined the relationship of career adaptability to interest and competence flexibility and career decision‐making ...difficulties. Participants were 535 male and 795 female Chinese senior secondary students in Hong Kong. Findings from hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that competence flexibility was associated with fewer career decision‐making difficulties and higher levels of career adaptability. Conversely, interest flexibility was associated with more decision‐making difficulties and lower levels of career adaptability. Path analyses revealed that career adaptability partially mediated the relationship of competence and interest flexibility with decision‐making difficulties. The mediating effects were significant for lack of information and inconsistent information (Gati et al., 1996), but not for readiness. Overall, findings supported the career adaptability framework. Research and practice implications are discussed, especially in relation to the career development needs of students in Chinese communities.
The accelerating digitization and automation of work, known as the 4th industrial revolution, will have an enormous impact on individuals’ career experiences. Yet, the academic literature in ...vocational psychology and career research has been remarkably silent on this trend so far. This article summarizes some of the most important issues of the 4th industrial revolution as they pertain to career development. The author then critically reviews how current models and frameworks of career development are suitable for addressing these emerging issues. Opportunities for future career development research and practice are outlined.
We tested the social-cognitive model of career self-management (Lent & Brown, 2013) using a longitudinal design. Participants were 420 college students who completed measures of career exploration ...and decision-making self-efficacy, outcome expectations, social support, goals, and actions, along with trait conscientiousness, at 2 time points roughly 4 months apart, near the beginning and middle of an academic year. They also reported their level of career decidedness and decisional anxiety at both of these time points as well as near the end of the academic year (about 3 months after the 2nd assessment). The model provided good overall fit to the data and accounted for substantial portions of the variance in engagement in exploratory actions and in the 2 decisional outcomes (decidedness and decisional anxiety) over time. The findings also supported the hypothesized bidirectional paths of the decisional outcomes to self-efficacy and outcome expectations. We consider implications of the findings for the social-cognitive model as well as for future research and practice.
Public Significance Statement
We tested a theoretical model of career decision-making in college students. The findings suggest that particular elements of the model, such as confidence in career decision-making skills, predict favorable change in students' decisional status and anxiety over time.
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CEKLJ, FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PEFLJ
The beginning years of the 21st century have witnessed the confluence of a host of environmental factors that have dramatically altered employment relationships and upended long‐standing approaches ...to career management for workers in the United States and around the world. The authors critically examine these environmental changes, focusing on the implications for career choice and decision making. On the basis of these findings, they address how individuals, working with career counselors and professionals, can enhance their contemporary careers in response to the challenges and uncertainties brought on by rapid environmental change.
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