Holland’s Career Typology Theory of Vocational Behaviour

Hollands’ Career Typology Theory is based on the following assumptions: that the choice of a vocation is an expression of personality and that vocational interest represents the expression of personality in work hobbies, recreational activities and preferences.

• that interest inventories are personality measures.
• that if an individual enters a given vocation because of history and personality traits associated with that vocation, then the same vocation like the adage “Birds of the same feather flock together”.
• that each individual has stereotypic representations of various vocations that are personally meaningful. Initial impressions of individuals are frequently based on dress, friends, actions and vocation.
• that vocational satisfaction, stability and achievement depend on the congruence of one’s personality and one’s work environment.

Holland’s Career Typology Theory

According to Osipow (1973) there are four propositions regarding Holland’s career typology theory.

1. that most individuals can be categorised as one of six types-realistic, investigative, social, conventional, enterprising and artistic.
2. that six kinds of occupational environments parallel the six types of individuals. These are:

(a) The realistic people are characterised by aggressive behaviour, interest in activities requiring motor coordination, skill and physical strength and masculinity. They prefer to act out problems and avoid interpersonal and verbal interactions.

(b) The investigative persons’ main characteristics are thinking rather than acting, organising and understanding rather than dominating or persuading.

(c) The social people seem to satisfy their needs for attention in a teaching or therapeutic situation. They seek close inter-personal situations, but avoid the use of extensive physical skill or engaging in intellectual problems solving.

(d) The conventional people are characterised by great concern for rules and regulations, great self-control, subordination of personal need and strong identification with power and status. This kind of person prefers structure and order and thus seeks interpersonal and work situations where structure is readily available.

(e) The enterprising people are verbally skilled and they use this to manipulate and dominate people. They are concerned about power and status and they aspire to attain such.

(f) The artistic person manifests strong self-expression and relations with other people but indirectly through artistic expression. He dislikes structure; prefers the use of physical skills or interpersonal interactions. They are more feminine, show relatively little self-control and express emotions more readily than most people.

3. That people search for environments and vocations that still permits them to exercise their skills and abilities; to express their attitudes and values; to take on agreeable problems and roles, and to avoid disagreeable ones.

4. That a person’s behaviour can be explained by the interaction of one’s personality pattern and one’s environment.
He also postulated that the direction of choice of one of the six occupational environments is a function of the dominant characteristics of one’s personality pattern. That, as the dominance of personality characteristics changes, so do the vocational preferences and choices. That an individual will seek an occupational environment that corresponds to the particular orientation that is most dominant in his life.

In a situation where the environmental factors interfere with the implementation of the first clear-cut orientation, the individual will seek an occupational environment appropriate to his second strongest orientation.

Implication of the Career Typology Theory for Vocational Counselling

According to the career typology theory, the more strongly developed an individual’s personality is, the more strongly developed the hierarchy is, the less chances of outside interference in job choices. Students should be encouraged to start career choices early in life. The counsellor should bear in mind that outside interferences may come from family or peer group. Someone’s early experiences and pressures may also affect his career choice.

Holland (1958) developed the Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) to help the counsellor to ascertain the preference of the client. The client’s answers to the questions asked will tell what type of personality he has. This was further modified by Bakare (1974) into Vocational Interest Inventory (VII). The right usage of the available information would help the counsellor in guiding his client to make appropriate choice of vocation and eventually have a smooth transition into the world of work.

Please visit and subscribe to our YouTube Channel: Decroly Education Centre (youtube.com) or Centre for Elites – YouTube