Vocational Psychology

During the Clinton administration, the U.S. Department of Labor created O*Net to provide a government controlled and authored set of career development resources. At that time, a range of private sector (and typically for-profit) companies provided most of the career assessments and occupational information resources used. The U.S. Government did contribute to the effort, through the military's ASVAB program, the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, the Occupational Outlook Handbook, and other resources and services.

I recently read an interesting article "Jobs Open, but Hiring Remains Slow" by Joe Light in the Wall Street Journal (Monday March 7, 2011, p. B8). Sorry, I'm too lazy to provide the link. Anyway, it appears that the jobs added (read: filled) in the US economy (130K per month) are only about what is needed to keep up with population growth. However, the number of jobs advertised online is now more than 400K. There are a LOT of unfilled positions out there in the private sector, particularly in highly skilled jobs. The reason, according to Light, is that it is a buyer's market.

I have heard it said that students in online degree programs are at a disadvantage compared to their counterparts at ground campuses because they might not develop the social skills required for success in the 'real world' and the workplace.

I just completed a review of a set of interest inventories used for career assessment purposes. The last such review I completed was a decade ago. And interesting thing I found was that there is a general trend toward making them shorter, often much shorter. Every single major interest inventory brand with over 100 items in 2000 lost items in any new edition published since then. Along with the loss of items generally came a loss in the reliability of the assessment's subscales. I suspect that the primary reason for this is the increasing availability of web-based assessments.

The two major types of checklists used in work situations are READ-DO and DO-CONFIRM. In the READ-DO checklist, one proceeds through the steps of a checklist, performing each task along the way. In the DO-CONFIRM checklist, one uses the checklist after the fact to confirm that all required steps have been completed. I will suggest some initial checklist topics of each type to support career intervention professionals. There are many more possible; this is just an initial foray.

Some of the major social media tools may affect the vocational behavior and job search strategies of workers worldwide. Two in particular may stand out: LinkedIn and Facebook. I predict that these and similar sites will become the dominant forms of career intervention, worldwide, within the next three years.