Holland’s Personality Theory and Career Choices

Employees often face important career choice issues. A person presumably chooses a career path from available opportunities. The preparation for a particular career, however, involves a choice from a wide range of education and vocational opportunities, which will have an often-unknown impact on their family, ethics, security, and friendships. An organization must seek to match individuals to the sustainable career paths that contribute to ongoing business success. An individual must seek to acquire the skills and maintain an interest in a particular career over an extended period. Either organizations or individuals may change their notion about the acceptability of a particular career. How can organizations select the best candidates and develop them along the way? How can an individual select the career to which they are most well suited? Holland’s theory may help answer these questions.

John L. Holland’s six personality types seek to classify an individual in one of six groups of characteristics (Gibson, Ivancevich, & Donnelly, 1994): (1) Realistic; (2) Investigative; (3) Social; (4) Conventional; (5) Enterprising; and (6) Artistic. Holland sought to develop a general model that would aid in matching individuals to personality types and thereby identify the general direction of their careers. At the very least, the theory may be able to identify career choices that the individual may be least likely in which to succeed or be “happy”, to the degree that a career path can define in discrete terms the qualify of family life, financial security, physical security, self-esteem, etc.

Reference

Gibson, J.L., Ivancevich, J.M., & Donnelly, J.H., Jr. (1994). Organizations: Behavior, structure, processes (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Irwin.