FACILITATING the TRANSITION from SCHOOL to WORK with a CAREER DECISION-MAKING APPROACH: Process-Related Assessments and the PIC Model

Individuals seek career counseling to facilitate their career development and make career decisions during different life transitions. One such transition that requires increasingly more careful planning nowadays is the transition from school to work. To help counselors provide services tailored to the needs of each individual client during this transition, we review two assessments intended to measure characteristics of individuals that involve the process of making a career decision: the Career Decision-Making Profile (CDMP) questionnaire and the Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire (CDDQ). In contrast to assessments of content (typically measuring abilities or vocational interests and preferences), the CDMP and CDDQ assess the process of making the decision. To demonstrate the use of the CDMP and CDDQ, we present a case study of the transition from school to work. We conceptualize career decision-making during this transition using the Prescreening, In-depth exploration, and Choice (PIC) model. The incremental value of using assessments of the decision-making process and relying on the PIC model for the transition from school to work is discussed.Instability may have become one of the core features of the 21st century labor market. One manifestation of this increasing instability has been new graduates' inability to secure jobs in their fields of study, with young adults' unemployment rates reaching 16% in the USA and up to 56% in some European countries (McKinsey, 2014). To address this challenge, career counselors have proposed new theories and intervention models to help individuals plan their careers (Krieshok, Motl, & Rutt, 2011; Levin & Gati, in press; Pryor & Bright, 2011; Savickas et al., 2009). The common principle underlying many of these new theoretical and practical developments is that of replacing the notion of a single career choice with the idea of ongoing career management. Indeed, in the first half of the 20th century, a single career choice leading to a typical career trajectory was often enough. This trend changed in the second half of the century, and now, in the 21th century, the focus is more often on helping clients with short-term decisions, acknowledging that it is practically impossible to predict the long-term career outcomes of a single decision (e.g., Krumboltz, 2009; Pryor & Bright, 2011). In addition, if counselors are to deal with the greater variety of short-term career decisions their clients face, they need to be informed about the vocational and employment situations each client faces, while adapting their approach to a variety of cases. In the present paper, we focus on the complexity involved in counseling for today's transition from school to work. Relying on the career decision-making perspective and specifically the PIC model (Gati, 2013; Gati & Asher, 2001), and viewing career counseling as aimed at facilitating the client's career decision-making (Gati & Levin, 2014b), we present and discuss the case of Nora, a college student majoring in political science and economics, who is at the end of her junior year and contemplating what to do after graduation. We begin with the presentation of Nora's dilemma and the assessment of how she makes career decisions (using the Career Decision-Making Profile Questionnaire [CDMP]; Gati, Landman, Davidovitch, Asulin-Peretz, & Gadassi, 2010; Gati, Gadassi, & Mashiah-Cohen, 2012) and the foci of her career indecision (using the Career Decision-making Difficulties Questionnaire [CDDQ]; Gati, Krausz, & Osipow, 1996). After describing why and how the CDMP and CDDQ can be incorporated into counseling, we review the Prescreening, In-depth exploration, and Choice (PIC) model (Gati & Asher, 2001), and discuss how it may be adapted for today's decisions that involve the transition from school to work.Nora's Challenge: Coping with the School-to-Work TransitionNora is a student at the end of her junior year at a large state university majoring in political science and economics. …