Career Development Theories
Career Development Theories
Introduction
In the present society, finding an effective career seems to be a difficult goal to achieve. When one is one the way to finding a career, he may encounter problems as to which career would match his skills and interests. Usually, a person is defined by what he does. It is called career identity (Overview, n.d.). Thus, it is the job of the career counselor to help individuals find jobs which will make them productive in the best of their abilities. Career development becomes a process, wherein individuals understand their career potentials towards achieving a career identity.
This paper discusses three career development theories. It involves a comparison of these theories and integration, concerning how these can be helpful to clients in finding a suitable career.
Hollands Theory
One of the most widely used theories by career counselors are the one created by John Holland called Hollands Theory. Lawrence K. Jones wrote an article discussing this theory entitled, What Color Are Your Feathers (2010). In his article, he defined Hollands theory through the statement Birds of the same feather flock together. (3). Holland defined six personality types in his theory. They are Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. He believed that people with the same personality types tend to stick together. For example, musicians would attach themselves to fellow musicians, writers would make friends with other writes, and businessmen would surround themselves with business associates. These people also tend to create an environment that would suite their personality type and induce their work performance. Just the same, there are also six environment types, which are Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. People who belong to environments that are similar to their personality types, would most likely to experience satisfaction and success in their work (3).
Donald Supers Theory
One of the goals of an individual is to be able to develop and implement his own self concept. His establishment of a self concept leads the way into a more stable vocational choice and behavior. As vocational choice is related with a persons stage of development, his career maturity is developed (Overview, n.d.). Such is the theory of Donald Super.
Supers theory is called developmental self-concept theory. The greatest significance of his theory to career development is his emphasis on developing a self-concept. According to Super, our experiences result to the development and change of our self-concept. He was able to come up with stages of development, wherein our competencies change as our experiences change. He argued that this becomes a cycle every time one changes his career (Donald, n.d.).
Banduras Social Cognitive Theory
According to Albert Bandura, one should believe in his own capabilities in order to take control of his thoughts, feelings and actions. This is called self efficacy. This is the main idea of Banduras social cognitive theory, which focuses on creating a self system (Overview, n.d.). Bandura explained that self efficacy determines a persons coping skills, how much efforts will a job take, and for how long this effort will hold up in the face of difficulties. He also made use of four essential sources of self efficacy. One is personal performance, which is basically ones previous accomplishment. The second is vicarious experiences or those taken from watching others. The third is verbal persuasion or basically, an encouragement, and the fourth is psychological or emotional factors (5).
Albert Bandura pointed out the difference between self esteem and self efficacy. He defines self esteem as a persons self worth, while self efficacy as a persons belief in his abilities (5).
In an article written by John Inman entitled, Social Cognitive Theory, A Synthesis, he explained that there are four methods or strategies in order to develop efficacy (n.d.). The first strategy is to develop mastery (4). It is important that one must be able to find ways of learning. The second is imitation. This is closely related to modeling. The third one is modeling, which accelerates learning by providing a model to imitate. According to Bandura, Fortunately, most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action (5).
Analysis
The three theories mentioned in this essay are three of the most significant in the field of career development. These contribute greatly in molding the human persons capabilities and skills, which will help him in establishing his career. All these theories focused on skills and learning. In Hollands theory, he mentioned of set of environments where persons with the same personalities can be productive. In Supers theory, he emphasized on the changes of peoples roles over time. Bandura made use of learning as a tool in achieving development. All these theories basically focused on productivity or development.
The theories have different methods in accomplishing career development. One is focused on the environment another is focused on stages and the other is focused on learning. If these were used all in one counseling session, then there would be a holistic perspective as to discovering a persons capabilities and in finding him a suitable career. They are all related in a sense that however different the perspectives, they all come down to one goal, which is to achieve career development.
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