Promoting career optimism and career security during career coaching: development and test of a model

ABSTRACT

This study explores how career coaching contributes to clients’ career optimism and career security from a career resource perspective. Drawing from the Career Resources Model (Hirschi [2012]. The career resources model: An integrative framework for career counsellors. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 40(4), 369–383), we propose that career identity resources (self-clarity and career-goal clarity) are essential prerequisites to develop career optimism and career security which are needed to successfully plan and manage careers. Data drawn from a single career coaching intervention for university students served as basis to develop and test a framework linking career identity resources with the psychological career variables career optimism and career security and revealed that working on clients’ self-clarity positively contributes to the development of career-goal clarity, career optimism and career security. The findings additionally outline that the positive effects of career coaching on clients’ career optimism and career security are explained by an increase in career-goal clarity. These results suggest a process model for career coaching interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• Career coaching
• coaching model
• self-clarity
• career-goal clarity
• career optimism
• career insecurity

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the help provided by Svenja Lorenz, Michael Thumer, and Verena Troppmann for engaging as coaches.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Katharina Ebner, born in 1980. 2006: MSc Psychology (Dipl.-Psych.) at LMU Munich, Germany. 2013: Ph.D. (Dr. rer. nat.) at TU Braunschweig, Germany. Since 2014: Senior Researcher at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany. Research on coaching, career coaching, career development, stress management, and digital stress. Dr Katharina Ebner also works as coach and trainer, she designs standardised short-term coaching for young adults, and supervises and trains young coaches.