16.1 Vocational Development
Heather Brule and Ellen Skinner
Learning Objectives
- Identify the main factors that influence vocational decision making. Consider the role of:
- Personality and interests
- Families
- Societal and cultural factors
- Describe how vocational decision making is different for youth who are not college bound
A primary task of early adulthood is vocational choice. The process of defining occupational goals and launching a career are challenging, and involve a whole series of decisions and actions that culminate in most people settling into a job or profession sometime during their twenties. Like so many developmental processes, this one starts at a very young age, proceeds through several typical steps, and can take a variety of pathways. Work represents a crucial life domain, and plays an important role all during middle and late adulthood, potentially influencing psychological and economic well-being, sense of purpose, cognitive and social development, and how the psychosocial task of generativity versus stagnation will be negotiated during middle adulthood. Hopefully, we are each becoming lifelong learners, particularly since we are living longer and will most likely change jobs multiple times during our lives. However, for many, our job changes will be within the same general occupational field, so our initial career choice is still significant. The American School Counselor Association (2017) recommends that school counselors aid students in their career development beginning as early as kindergarten and continue this development throughout their education.
Link to Learning
To complete a free online career questionnaire and identify potential careers based on your preferences, go to:
Did you find out anything interesting? Think of this activity as a starting point to your career exploration. Other great ways for young adults to research careers include informational interviewing, job shadowing, volunteering, practicums, and internships. Once you have a few careers in mind that you want to find out more about, go to the Occupational Outlook Handbook from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to learn about job tasks, required education, average pay, and projected outlook for the future.
Vocational Interests and Personalities
People are drawn to particular vocations based on the fit between their own interests (or vocational personalities) and the nature of specific work environments. One of the most influential theories of vocational personalities was developed by John Holland (Holland, 1985, 1997). It was introduced in 1959 (Holland, 1959) and is still in use in many areas today, such as career counseling (Nauta, 2010). The theory’s core idea is that people typically fall into one of six “vocational personality” types, each of which is characterized by a profile of interests, preferred activities, beliefs, abilities, values, and characteristics. These interest profiles can be used to identify the kinds of jobs that migh