Classic Career Theory Part One Holland’s theory of vocational personalities and work environments

Holland’s theory is founded upon the following propositions: ‘1. In our culture, most persons can be categorized as one of six types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, or Conventional. 2. There are six model environments: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, or Conventional. 3. People search for environments that will let them exercise their skills and abilities, express their attitudes and values, and take on agreeable problems and roles. 4. Behavior is determined by an interaction between personality and environment.’ (Holland, 1992, p.4)

The ‘RIASEC’ typology The acronym RIASEC is commonly used to summarise Holland’s typology (i.e. Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional)

Realistic Likes to work with animals, tools, or machines; generally avoids social activities like teaching, healing, and informing others; Has good skills in working with tools, mechanical or electrical drawings, machines, or plants and animals; Values practical things you can see, touch, and use like plants and animals, tools, equipment, or machines; and Sees self as practical, mechanical, and realistic.

Investigative Likes to study and solve maths or science problems; generally avoids leading, selling, or persuading people; Is good at understanding and solving science and maths problems; values science; and Sees self as precise, scientific, and intellectual.

Artistic Likes to do creative activities like art, drama, crafts, dance, music, or creative writing; generally avoids highly ordered or repetitive activities; Has good artistic abilities -- in creative writing, drama, crafts, music, or art; Values the creative arts -- like drama, music, art, or the works of creative writers; and Sees self as expressive, original, and independent.

Social Likes to do things to help people -- like, teaching, nursing, or giving first aid, providing information; generally avoids using machines, tools, or animals to achieve a goal; Is good at teaching, counselling, nursing, or giving information; Values helping people and solving social problems; and Sees self as helpful, friendly, and trustworthy.

Enterprising Likes to lead and persuade people, and to sell things and ideas; generally avoids activities that require careful observation and scientific, analytical thinking; Is good at leading people and selling things or ideas; Values success in politics, leadership, or business; and Sees self as energetic, ambitious, and sociable.

Conventional Likes to work with numbers, records, or machines in a set, orderly way; generally avoids ambiguous, unstructured activities Is good at working with written records and numbers in a systematic, orderly way; Values success in business; and Sees self as orderly, and good at following a set plan.

Each RIASEC type is defined on the basis of observable, and thereby, measurable interests and skills. This is also translated in terms of self identity – e.g. a Conventional type seeing themselves as ‘orderly’ and ‘good at following a set plan’ Here Holland emphasises skills that can be observed and measured (indeed evidenced – e.g via a CV or ‘competence-based’ interview).

Holland’s ‘Hexagon Model’ Holland developed his RIASEC typology of personality types in conjunction with what is known as the ‘Hexagon Model’ to produce a powerful organising schema for the analysis and measurement of individual interests and work environments

Realistic Investigative Conventional Artistic Enterprising Social Degree of Consistency Personality Patterns High RI, RC, IR, IA, AI, AS SA, SE, ES, EC, CE, CR Medium RA, RE, IS, IC, AR, AE, SI, SC, EA, ER, CS, CI Low RS, IE, AC, SR, EI, CA

Examples of Holland’s consistency indicators A ‘Realistic and Investigative’ vocational personality profile has a high degree of consistency, i.e. a ‘Realistic’ type sees self as ‘practical, mechanical, and realistic’. Similarly, an ‘Investigative’ type sees self as ‘precise, scientific, and intellectual’. Holland would suggest that these characteristics are consistent with each other. Conversely, an ‘Artistic and Conventional’ vocational personality profile has a low degree of consistency, i.e. an ‘Artistic’ type sees self as ‘expressive, original, and independent’, whereas a ‘Conventional’ type sees self as ‘orderly, and good at following a set plan’. Holland would suggest that these characteristics are inconsistent with each other

An important implication of Holland’s notion of consistency is as follows: A person with a highly consistent vocational personality profile is more likely to find a suitable and satisfying occupation, in comparison to a person with low consistency, i.e. for an ‘Artistic and Conventional’ person, there may be few occupations to be found that will offer the opportunity to be both orderly and routine and expressive and original.

The Hexagon provides a heuristic from which a detailed diagnostic system is derived. The implementation of this system relies on the administration of interest (pace, personality) tests such as the ‘Self-Directed Search’ (SDS) The indicators of Holland’s diagnostic system can be summarised as follows…………

Consistency, addresses the degree of internal coherence of an individual’s RIASEC profile. Consistency is determined by utilising the spatial positioning of the interest types as they appear on the Hexagon. For example, if an individual scores most highly on ‘Realistic’ and ‘Investigative’ then, due to the proximity of these two types on the Hexagon, the individual is deemed to have a consistent profile. Conversely, a high score on ‘Enterprising’ and ‘Investigative’ interests, which appear as opposites on the Hexagon’s perimeter, would be judged as evidence of inconsistency.

Congruence, relates to the match between the individual’s personality and their current or potential work environments. Congruence is measured by the degree of fit between the RIASEC profile of the person and that of the recipient environment.

Differentiation refers to the relative strength of the interest types within an individual’s RIASEC profile. Low differentiation is indicated by a flat profile of test scores, whereas high differentiation is indicated by a peaked profile. According to Holland, differentiation can be associated to career decision making – a person with high differentiation being well positioned to make career decisions; conversely, a person with low differentiation may experience difficulty in making a career decision.

Identity refers to the degree of clarity of ‘the picture of one’s goals, interests and talents’ (Holland, 1992, p.5). The measurement of identity draws from the differentiation and consistency indicators to define the strength of personalities and work environments A person with highly consistent and differentiated personality profile will have a high level of clarity about who they are in vocational terms. Conversely, a person with an inconsistent, undifferentiated personality profile will have a low level of clarity about who they are in vocational terms. A person with a clear sense of vocational identity would be well positioned to make career decisions

The RIASEC typology and the diagnostic indicators of Congruence, Consistency, Differentiation, and Identity, provide the key components of Holland’s organising schema. As already indicated, this schema extends beyond the measurement of the person to the measurement of the work environment……

People = RIASEC Work Environments = RIASEC Artistic - Social Artistic - Social

‘Occupational environments are classified in a manner similar to the classification of personality types. A census can be conducted of the percentage of employees of a given type in an organisation, thus characterising its ‘personality pattern’. (Spokane, 1996, pp.47-48) Examples of this type of census data can be found in the ‘Dictionary of Holland Occupational Codes’, which lists over 12,000 occupations by their three-letter RIASEC code. Further examples are ‘The Occupations Finder’ and ‘The Educational Opportunities Finder’, both of which accompany the SDS test.

Strengths: Easy to administer An ‘elegant’ theory – systematically organises the complex world of career High face validity Weaknesses: Focuses exclusively on interests – values and beliefs not addressed Context free (self) assessment of interests Measures a point in time – career over time not addressed