Voices in transition: lessons on career adaptability.

  Occupational problems have negative consequences across life domains,
  yet relatively little research addresses the psychological resources
  necessary for the adult career transition. Considering Super's concept
  of career adaptability (D. E. Super & E. G. Knasel, 1981), the authors
  outline what they believe adults need to successfully manage the
  transition. Individuals in transition were interviewed and their
  responses were analyzed using qualitative methods. Participants who
  anticipated career change planfully and realistically, even when their
  jobs appeared to be secure, cited better experiences of the transition
  and perceived themselves to be coping better than did participants who
  ignored signs of change or reacted unrealistically soon after the job
  loss.

Frances was 51 when she lost her job after 13 years. Divorced, and with her sons on their own, she had no one dependent on her, but also no one to assist her. She explained, "It hit so suddenly--I just feel very scared." Joe was also 51 at the time of the termination of his job. Although his wife had a job, they both acknowledged that her hourly salary would not provide enough income for long--not with one daughter months away from college and a second daughter 2 years behind her. Joe described his reaction this way:

     I've been--not depressed--but down. It's hard to get motivated. I
     spent nearly 20 years of my life with this company, and this is
     what I end up with. I started with them right after it got going. I
     still feel angry at the company for the way they allowed it to
     deteriorate.

Frances and Joe both felt betrayed after putting in years of loyal service to a local company. Neither of them had looked for a job in many years. Both felt shocked.

Since the 1970s, career change has become increasingly common in the lives of adults. Whether because of personal choice or because of organizational change in the world of work, the need to change jobs or occupations multiple times must be considered the rule and not the exception (Cairo, Kritis, & Myers, 1996). Furthermore, for a significant number of adults changing careers, the transition results in a position that is less desirable than their previous one (Wanberg, 1995). Occupational problems have been shown to have a negative effect on physical and emotional health, life satisfaction, family life (Menaghan, & Merves, 1984; Williams & Johansen, 1985), and financial resources (Sales, 1995). The uncertainty that results from this trend toward more frequent change has prompted a need for an increased understanding within the counseling profession of adult career development; however, relatively little research addresses the psychological resources necessary for adult career transitions (Heppner, 1998).

Super's life-span, life-space theory (Super, Savickas, & Super, 1996) provides important insights for furthering career counselors' understanding of the adult career transition. Prior to the sharp increase in adult career change, the core concept of Super's theory was career maturity. This concept emphasized the following developmental markers for decision making and coping with career tasks: Growth (4 to 13 years), Exploration (14 to 24 years), Establishment (25 to 44 years), Maintenance (45 to 65 years), and Disengagement (65 years and over; Super et al., 1996). The emphasis on career maturity in Super's theory contributed a great deal to the frequently studied school-to-work transition (e.g., Blustein, Phillips, Joben-Davis, Finkelberg, & Roarke, 1997), but this emphasis on maturity became less applicable as more and more adults faced economic and organizational change that sometimes left their careers in turmoil. Such changes demanded a response to the question, What skills do adults need for a successful career transition?

Super and Knasel (1981) ventured to answer that question by introducing the construct of career adaptability, which they defined as "readiness to cope with changing work and working conditions" (p. 195). They proposed this construct as a way to better address the challenges adults face that are both fundamentally different from the challenges to adolescents and not associated with any particular age or stage. Adults experience challenges in a more unpredictable fashion, and school-to-work may not be the most significant transition in an individual's career. With the concept of career adaptability, Super and Knasel stressed an appreciation for the interaction between the individual and the environment, the removal of any emphasis on maturation or growth, and an emphasis on "being forward-looking, allowing us to see the individual as behaving proactively" (p. 199). Herr (1992) summarized Super's concept to include planfulness, exploration, information, decision making, and reality orientation. Cairo et al. (1996) elaborated on these terms, outlining a mix of attitudes and behaviors that emphasized a proactive approach to career change that included a realistic assessment of one's personal context.

Several authors have called for further study of the career adaptability construct. Dix and Savickas (1995) recommended that future studies concentrate attention on coping responses or behaviors necessary for one to handle the career change tasks at hand. Authors have cited a need for a practical understanding of career adaptability as it relates to how individuals are to engage in the adult career transition (Heppner, 1998; Savickas, 1997). Phillips (1997) stressed that one way to understand the career transition process more fully would be for career theorists to listen carefully to individuals who have engaged in adaptive decision making. Goodman (1994) suggested that with a greater understanding of the career transition process, counselors could respond more appropriately to the individual needs of clients. Interviewing individuals who are in the midst of the adult career transition, as this study does, provides insight into the questions raised here.

Literature outside of the career domain also contributes to an understanding of career adaptability. In proposing their theory of coping with midlife transitions, O'Connor and Wolfe (1987, p. 806) described a series of five stages: stability (pretransition), rising discontent, crisis, redirection and adaptation, and restabilizing. It is noteworthy that they emphasized that transition and change should be viewed as natural and inevitable, not as detours in one's life. Their theory emphasizes that growth depends on one's response to changes in the self and the environment and on one's ability to adapt to crisis. We suggest that rising discontent can be understood not only as an internal process but also as a heightened awareness of external cues that could have a negative impact on one's career (i.e., local unemployment trends, employer dissatisfaction). Preparedness to act in response to such events would reflect a high level of reality orientation and planfulness. By listening to the voices of the clients themselves and by analyzing their reactions, we sought to better define the skills reflective of an adaptive approach to career transition, as well as the kinds of contextual hurdles individuals must surmount or assets they commonly bring to this transition.

One clarification should be made regarding the use of the terms job loss and involuntary career transition. Job loss in this study refers to a type of involuntary transition in which the worker has had little or no influence over the outcome, either because it was unforeseen or because he or she chose to stay in a job despite certain warning signs. Other types of career transition might be forced on individuals (i.e., involuntary) but are subject to some control. Examples include a choice of early retirement or a drastic change in job environment that forces an individual to choose to stay or go. The individuals interviewed for this study contribute to an understanding of different facets of career transition, including but not limited to the job loss.

Method

We chose a qualitative approach to data collection and analysis for several reasons. First, qualitative research focuses on the interplay between the environment and the individual (Maxwell, 1996), an issue of particular relevance here given Super's emphasis on context (Super et al., 1996). Second, qualitative research emphasizes collaboration between the investigator and the research participants, allowing for heightened understanding of individual process and the meaning that participants attribute to their behaviors and circumstances. Finally, qualitative research (particularly grounded theory, the qualitative method used in this study) is open to identifying unanticipated phenomena (Maxwell, 1996). The grounded theory approach, developed by Glaser and Strauss (1967), builds theory throughout data collection and analysis (rather than using research to test a proposed theory). In this case, we were attempting to develop theory in response to the question, "What does adaptability look like in the face of involuntary career transition?"

Research Site and Population

We approached prospective participants with the cooperation of the staff of a career counseling agency, located in a midwestern metropolitan area, that responds to the needs of workers who have lost jobs--usually through no fault of their own--and of individuals who have been unemployed longterm. We contacted approximately 200 individuals through two sources: weekly counseling agency orientation sessions and a direct mailing to agency clients with active files. Forty-eight clients expressed a willingness to be interviewed, with 21 of them eventually scheduling and following through with an interview. The initial design of the project called for a comparison both of men and women and of Caucasian and African American groups. However, at the project's midpoint, only 2 African American women and no African American men had indicated a desire to participate. Because of limited time and resources, we decided at that time to compare across gender within the Caucasian group only, and the data from the 2 African American women were excluded. One other female participant's interview was excluded because of an overly tangential response style. The analysis included interview data from 18 individuals: 9 women and 9 men, with ages ranging from 30 to 61 years (average age = 44 years). Of the 18 participants, 11 had been through some type of company reorganization, buyout, or closing that resulted in layoffs or downsizing; 2 had exceeded time allotted by the Family Medical Leave Act; and 5 had been fired. (Although the career counseling agency usually reserved its services for individuals who were unemployed through no fault of their own, the agency provided career services for these 5 individuals because they had lost their jobs under questionable circumstances.)

Procedure

After completing a single-item self-rating of their perceived career adaptability (described in more detail below) and reading a brief description of the purpose of the research, willing participants were contacted by phone and scheduled for a semistructured interview (of 60 to 90 minutes) in person. The interview questions (see Appendix) provided structure and allowed for an appropriate amount of flexibility for further investigation (Maxwell, 1996). We developed interview questions based on the career adaptability and career transitions literature; conversations with two individuals, known to the first author, who had undergone involuntary transition; and some of the researchers' prior experiences working in the career field, including teaching, vocational rehabilitation counseling, and research. We tape-recorded and transcribed interviews to ensure the accuracy and contribute to the richness of the data. (For specific details of the interview and data sorting techniques, contact the first author.)

At the time they were contacted, participants completed a single-item self-rating of how closely they fit a description of career adaptability. This description was presented in the form of a brief vignette specific to gender and reflected the ideas in the following definition, which we developed from the literature on career adaptability (Blustein, 1997; Goodman, 1994; Herr, 1992; Savickas, 1997; Super & Knasel, 1981): Career adaptability consists of both an attitude that helps in coping with and adjusting to the changes in one's work life and the actions necessary to plan for and choose work that will meet one's individual needs. We believed that this definition allowed for enough interpretation by participants to apply it to themselves in light of many different kinds of behaviors or attitudes. We instructed participants to think of the ratings in the following ways: A 10 would mean that one's attitudes and behaviors fit the definition almost all of the time, a 1 would reflect almost no attitudes or behaviors that are consistent with the definition, and a rating of 5 would reflect attitudes and behaviors consistent with the definition about half the time. Completion of this 10-point self-rating provided the interviewer (first author) with a quick reference for how the participant saw him--or herself coping with the career transition and influenced how the interviewer approached certain questions. For example, a participant who rated herself on the upper end might be asked about factors contributing to her perceived progress in the career transition versus factors hindering progress. The ratings were used again in data analysis to compare across participants' responses in light of their varying self-assessments.

Organizing and Analyzing the Data

The process of organizing the data used in this research closely followed descriptions of categorizing and sorting data that were outlined by Merriam (1998) and Rubin and Rubin (1995). The process, called "the constant comparative analysis" (Merriam, 1998, p. 159), begins with devising categories to provide a structure for comparing and analyzing the data across transcripts. Categories were based on both the purpose of the interview questions and the content of the transcripts. We constructed an initial set of categories by breaking down and grouping the content of the first transcript, as suggested in Merriam. Additions and clarifications were made to the categories based on information from the analysis of subsequent transcripts. Two peer reviewers (the third and fourth authors) provided feedback on the relevance and clarity of the categories, which were well-established after analyzing the first five transcripts.

To assign data to categories, each transcript was reviewed and significant statements or ideas were identified. The peer reviewers provided feedback on the types of ideas and statements that were and were not being identified as significant during the review of the transcripts. Although the transcribing and categorizing of participant responses allowed for an ongoing analysis of the data, we conducted a more comprehensive analysis once the individual lists of critical items compiled from all the transcripts were combined and sorted according to category and gender. Throughout data analysis, we attempted to identify significant themes and patterns that recurred across the data, related to the kinds of behaviors, beliefs, characteristics, and contextual factors that systematically seemed to support or hinder the participant's career transition.

After interviewing 10 participants and analyzing their transcripts, we named the preliminary themes and held discussions to clarify, expand, or eliminate themes on the basis of whether they were supported by the data. Following these discussions, we interviewed the next 8 participants with the purpose of supporting or challenging the themes identified from the first 10 interviews. After these discussions, we began the second set of interviews with the purpose of supporting or challenging the themes identified from the first set of interviews. In this way, our conjectures regarding appropriate themes could be tested and discussed with the research participants themselves, to better understand their significance or to clarify any potential misconceptions (Polkinghorne, 1994). Specifically, during the second set of interviews, if a familiar theme appeared in the interviewee's description of the career transition, we solicited his or her thoughts on the validity or appropriateness of this potential theme. The data from the second set of interviews were analyzed using the same method as the first set and incorporated into the existing results.

In the end, some related themes were combined, and many themes were eliminated due to a lack of redundancy across the group of interviewees. A rule of thumb for retaining a theme was that it be significant in no fewer than four of the interviewees' descriptions. Usually, the themes were reflected in about four to eight transcripts, with some themes reflected across the entire sample.

Validity

We used various procedures throughout the process of data collection and analysis to ensure the validity, or trustworthiness, of the results (Maxwell, 1996; Merriam, 1998). Accuracy of the content was ensured through audiotaping, transcribing and then verifying the data with participants themselves. We also took the opportunity to elicit feedback regarding themes from some participants during the second set of interviews. Two doctoral students with expertise in career development helped to challenge, support, and/or further develop the themes generated from the data.

Results

The purpose of this research was to clarify the construct of career adaptability as it relates to adult career transition. Three types of themes were generated from the participant interviews: adaptive responses, contextual challenges, and insights into the transition. We begin our presentation of the analysis results with adaptive responses, which reflect actual behaviors or perspectives that proved beneficial to participants during the career transition and are therefore provided as suggestions for others going through similar changes. The contextual themes describe factors that significantly affected or interacted with the career transition process. The "insights" themes reflect ideas such as the world of work or finding meaning in the career transition, and they seemed to emerge more from participants' desires to "get it off their chests" than from the interview itself. For most themes, illustrative cases are presented to distinguish between more and less adaptive responses and/or the important role of some contextual variable.

Adaptive Responses

Adaptive Response 1: Approach job loss with a healthy sense of urgency. Nearly every individual interviewed described intense emotion on learning of his or her job loss. However, the various reactions early in the transition could be distinguished from one another, with some reactions that clearly seemed to be more adaptive and to have potentially important implications for the course of the transition. Two cases are described in detail below to depict the apparent importance of the initial reaction to the job loss.

      Despite witnessing two former colleagues struggle after the
      layoff, Joe concluded, "That won't happen to me .... I'm going to
      hit four or five places and I'm going to have a job." He
      explained, "That's why I did nothing when we were slow. I did
      nothing when I was working half days" (for 6 weeks). He continued,
      "I expected to be off a month, only because I was going, to drag
      my feet. I was going to take my month off. I was going to look,
      but I wasn't going to beat on the doors and give it all I have."
      At the time of the interview, Joe's experience of the transition
      process was aggravating and depressing. He described the impact on
      his marriage this way: "It caused friction between me and my wife
      when I was first laid off. I felt like I was doing enough. She
      felt like I wasn't doing enough. She may have been right."
           In contrast, Frances explained that "within 5 days of
      learning about the layoff, I had 50 resumes in the mail to people
      in the industry." She believed a natural transition would be to go
      into Web design, explaining, "This is the way the world's moving.
      And rather than be stuck back in print, I want it to be something
      that helps me move forward." Some responses to her initial mailing
      had come back and she had "been in communication with a company
      that is looking to do a Web catalogue." In addition, she had begun
      to arrange some new training for herself. Although she was
      confident in her level of skills, she was pursuing formal training
      because of an awareness that "the people filling jobs look for
      that and all it can do is make me more marketable."

These two contrasting responses highlight the characteristics of a more adaptive initial response to job loss. Frances's response reflected a high level of reality orientation and planfulness and had resulted in some promising leads. Joe's initial response was much less planful, and his assumption that work would come with little effort reflected a deficiency in reality orientation. He was experiencing a great deal of frustration and some family tension at the time of the interview.

Adaptive Response 2: Picture the details of your next career move--even when no transition is in sight. One participant captured the general sentiment toward a career transition when he stated, "I'd rather work two jobs than look for one." Most individuals with a job--especially if they are content with this job--have little motivation to actively consider their next career move. However, several participants distinguished themselves by demonstrating the benefit of daydreaming and/or planning for their next career move, even with no knowledge of imminent job loss. One participant highlighted the advantage of being forward-looking by saying, "People who lose their jobs successfully have other options. Their identity is not wrapped up in the job." The following cases illustrate this theme.

      Robert was aware that his current job was not what he wanted in
      the long term. Although not planning to leave his position in the
      foreseeable future, he resumed his undergraduate education. He
      explained that completing the degree "opened the door of my dream,
      which is to sell pharmaceuticals, and you can't do it without a
      bachelor's degree." Coincidentally, Robert completed his degree
      just days before being let go and was able to begin networking
      for positions in pharmaceutical sales right away. His foresight
      had afforded him the perspective that "everything is falling into
      place for a purpose" at the time of his job loss.

Robert demonstrated how the planfulness and exploration components of career adaptability allowed him to make informed decisions quickly after the job loss. He and others described the loss of their jobs as an opportunity to advance their careers, and this outlook seemed to provide a buffer against the painful emotions that many feel at the beginning of the transition. The opposite approach also demonstrates the advantage of this sort of adaptive future orientation.

      Despite feeling unhappy, stressed, and suspicious that he might
      lose his job, John remained in his position: "Cognitively, I knew
      it was coming, but I just had too many other things going on." He
      explained that he continued to apply to and receive rejections
      from hospitals, despite the awareness that "I was really tired of
      the hospitals. I still wanted to use my skills and work with
      people, but I really wasn't interested in working with hospitals."

John's explanation seems fairly typical of the average worker: Value the stability of the current position and plan for your career when you have to. Looking at the outlook of John in relation to that of Robert demonstrates the advantages of a true sense of planfulness and active exploration.

Adaptive Response 3: Get ready to make changes when career transitions seem imminent. The previous theme suggested that looking ahead is a more adaptive behavior in relation to career transition than staying narrowly focused on the present. This idea is no more true than when an individual notices clues suggesting that career transition may be on the horizon. Recalling the stages of transition we described in the literature review, these clues could be described broadly as "rising discontent" (O'Connor & Wolfe, 1987). An employee with a sense of reality orientation, some accurate information, and a readiness to act on either will have the skills to notice and react to rising discontent prior to reaching the crisis stage. Joe and John, whose cases were previously described, both illustrate this theme. Each remained in his position and gave little thought to the future, despite dissatisfaction and suspicion that his job was in jeopardy. The following example illustrates how reacting to change may help avoid a sense of crisis.

    Suzanne felt mistreated and suspected that her supervisor would
    eventually fire her. When her company began offering retraining for
    employees who would accept voluntary layoffs, she took the chance.
    She described her decision in this way: "I thought about it for a
    long time. I said, 'I'm not going to get stuck here waiting for him
    to ask me to leave.' So, I elected to take the layoff."

Two other participants chose a layoff with severance and benefits to avoid the risk of being downsized at a later date with fewer benefits. With a sense of reality orientation, all three of these individuals looked at the future and decided to take some control over the situation rather than live with the uncertainty. All expressed satisfaction with some sense of control.

Adaptive Response 4: Treat decisions about stopgap employment cautiously. The term stopgap refers to temporary work that meets some need while an individual waits for or pursues work that more closely matches personal goals. The decision to take stopgap employment is a complex one. Many individuals need a temporary source of income to meet their responsibilities between jobs, yet stopgap employment can serve as a barrier to the transition process if it impedes the individual's engagement in career transition tasks. Some of the participants who maintained a sense of planfulness were able to use stopgap employment as a means of surviving during the transition or even enhancing their future possibilities, whereas others were caught in a pattern of stressful underemployment.

      Katie explained her reaction to the job loss as follows: "I
      panicked and went and got as many jobs as I could because I was so
      scared." After several years of jumping from job to job--often
      holding more than one at a time--she reflected, "I should have
      taken unemployment, and backed off from this. But instead I went
      into kind of a panic."
         In response to intense financial pressures, Suzanne, a single
      parent, took a job delivering pizzas saying, "It does put money in
      my pocket, and it pays some bills. And sometimes when we didn't
      have any food, I could bring a pizza home." During that time, she
      was able to maintain an orientation toward the future and complete
      an associate's degree as a paralegal, with honors. Suzanne had
      become very active in the job search, securing some interviews and
      using the career counseling agency for assistance.

With a sense of planfulness reflected in her decisions, Suzanne worked enough to care for herself and her daughter while completing a degree and maintaining an appropriate focus on the goals for her transition. These examples highlight the importance of giving a great deal of thought to choosing a stopgap position and maintaining a sense of planfulness about the purpose of such a position.

Adaptive Response 5: Set realistic goals and outline steps to achieve them. Planfulness and exploration must result in adaptive decision making for the transition to move toward a satisfying conclusion. An important distinction could be made between the individuals in the study regarding the specificity of their goals and their ability to articulate what was required of them to achieve their goals. A lack of clarity can make it difficult for individuals and counselors to see whether certain decisions or behaviors will actually prove beneficial to the process. The following two examples reflect this distinction.

       Leigh explained her attempts to establish her own consulting
       business. At other times, she spoke at length of the kind of
       company she hoped to work for. Clarifying her preference for
       working for herself or for another company proved difficult.
       Throughout the interview, Leigh listed a variety of short-comings
       that had derailed her success in the past and that did not seem
       to be fully resolved. For instance, she referred to herself as
       "very naive about marketing" and she explained that "cold calling
       makes my skin crawl." Her major plan consisted of "reconnecting
       with people and strengthening my network." At the same time, she
       discussed feeling like an outsider in the business community
       where she was trying to network.

Leigh's goals and her plan to reach them were characterized by a lack of clarity. Although she was oriented toward the future, she did not seem to have a highly developed sense of reality orientation. She also did not seem to have a clear path to follow, and it was uncertain whether her actions would be beneficial in light of her stated strengths and weaknesses. In the future, for Leigh to obtain the type of work she described, she must clarify her goal in a way that makes it realistic for her situation and so that she knows where to begin. The following example gives a contrasting view.

      Tom expressed a longtime interest in sign language, and it became
      clear that he had given it a great deal of thought. He used sign
      language as he discussed much of his goal. He discussed one
      potential hurdle to accomplishing his goal as well as information
      he had obtained to help him overcome the hurdle. When asked how he
      would gain necessary experience, he reported that he volunteered
      at a hospital and that one of his friends there was hearing
      impaired. He thought he could ask her to practice with him and he
      could "become more involved with what deaf friends I have, not
      just on a monthly basis, but more like a couple of times per
      week." In addition, he had registered for sign language classes
      one day a week, "which I will start in the fall," and he was
      considering "volunteering at a school for the deaf."

This example reflects the advantages of developing a sense of clarity regarding one's goals. Tom had created a viable possibility based on knowledge of himself and the process and had committed himself to taking certain steps based on his information. Such a process allows the individual in transition to visualize a place to begin, a satisfying place to end, and the steps required in between.

Contextual Challenges

The advantages afforded individuals who behave adaptively throughout the transition process (or in anticipation of it) seem clear; however, challenges faced during the transition and the resources available to cope with these challenges directly affect one's ability to cope. The following themes describe some important contextual issues illustrated by the participants in this study. Context is considered broadly here to include factors other than personal effort, beliefs, or emotions, such as gender, financial concerns, level of support, and relationship to former employers or to the world of work in general.

Contextual Challenge 1: Financial resources, or the lack of them, strongly influence how one copes with job transition. No contextual factor appeared more striking in its impact on an individual's ability to cope with the transition than did finances. Decisions about stopgap employment and about whether or not to pursue further education or training, overall perspective on the job loss, and self-assessment of overall career adaptability all seemed to be significantly tied to a participant's perception of financial pressure related to the job loss. The perception of having some sort of financial buffer seemed to greatly reduce the anxiety and anger people experienced in losing their jobs.

Several specific issues seem related to financial security or concern. Eight participants were pursuing formal education or training as part of their transition. Six of them had a financial buffer, and the 2 who did not were having their training paid for by the career counseling agency. Of the 5 participants who had secured stopgap employment, and of the 3 who were considering pursuing it, all perceived impending financial pressures with no real buffer. In contrast, I participant with a severance package, unemployment benefits, and a spouse who was employed stated, "All those were cushion factors, so I didn't have to run out and get a job right away."

Participants' attitudes and emotions seemed to be greatly influenced by finances. Whereas anger, fear, betrayal, and suspicion were common to those without a buffer, those with a buffer referred to themselves as happy or relieved or made comments regarding the job loss such as "I'm glad I got out" and "It's been great." Four participants with a buffer described their job loss as an opportunity. In general, the experience of financial pressure greatly influenced a person's perception of and emotional reaction to the job loss.

Contextual Challenge 2: Family life interacts significantly with work life. Participants who were parents with children in the home were concerned about the impact of their job loss on the children--from caring for their basic needs to providing for their education to offering them spending money. The only clear gender differences reflected by participants during the interviews involved family roles and were possibly related to the participants' age. Women in the Maintenance stage (45 to 65 years; Super et al., 1996) seemed to represent fairly traditional career paths. It was more common for their careers to have been interrupted because of family responsibilities and caretaking roles. In other words, each of these women could say, in hindsight, that their family commitments had a greater impact on the course of their careers than their subsequent job loss had on their families. The women in the Establishment stage (25 to 44 years) had experienced much more egalitarian roles with regard to their work lives than did the women in the Maintenance stage. Each one of these women viewed her income as being as important to the family as her spouse's income and, except for one woman who was trying to find work that was more conducive to her toddler's schedule, none discussed family factors that limited their careers. Men in the Maintenance stage derived little comfort from the incomes of their spouse, whereas the two Establishment stage men who were married at the time of the interview described more of a partnership with their spouse.

Contextual Challenge 3: An employer can have a significant impact on the experience of the transition (beyond getting it started, of course). Offering a severance package is the most obvious and practical way that an employer can assist an individual in the transition, given the financial pressures accompanying a job loss. In addition, several participants expressed appreciation to their company for arranging outplacement and career transition services, such as those provided by the career counseling agency used for this study. None of the participants who had been offered such services expressed animosity toward their previous company in response to the layoff. Conversely, of the participants who expressed the most intense negative emotion toward the company that had laid them off, none had been offered outplacement services.

Whether a company was straightforward and clear about the terminations also influenced the degree of animosity participants felt in relation to their previous employers. Several participants described a reaction of complete shock and surprise to the layoff. Those individuals remained angry, the danger of which is evidenced when negative emotions about the past do not allow the individual to focus appropriately on the future. The following cases illustrate the value of good communication from the company.

      Katie and Tim both lost their jobs because they exceeded
      their medical leave. Tim described the support he received from
      his company: "I'm thankful that the employer was one who wanted to
      help me. You know, my supervisor and his supervisor sat down with
      me and worked with me and mentored me to get through what I was
      dealing with." When he became well enough to look for work, he was
      able to network with people at his former job to gather
      information and generate leads for new work. Katie, on the other
      hand, was informed by personnel that her sick leave could be
      extended with pay if she provided a letter from her psychologist.
      However, when the time came, she explained, "I had all the medical
      papers, I wasn't pulling any fast ones, but they wrote me a letter
      that said if I didn't report to work by August 7th, it was job
      abandonment." Of course, she was unable to report to work by this
      deadline and was fired as a result. After this incident, she
      panicked and became entangled in one stopgap job after another.

A second unfortunate result of poor employer-employee communication described by some participants was the development of a sense of mistrust toward the world of work in general. This sentiment was best expressed by Joe, who said his attitude toward his next employer would be this: "I'm working for you now. You pay me my wages and I will work for you, but beyond that--there's nothing beyond that." Employers can more positively influence the transition by communicating sensitively with their employees and offering them accurate information.

Insights Into the Transition

Many ideas expressed by the participants seemed to arise more from their desire to be heard than from any particular question they were asked. Their motivation for participating in this study seemed to be the opportunity to share some insights about their experiences. Three such insights were frequently stressed as important, and each involved a "bigger than self" quality.

Insight 1: Needs and responsibilities sometimes conflict with the ideal occupation. Individuals in transition are keenly aware of the struggle that exists in the world of work between the desire to implement one's occupational self-concept through the "ideal job" and the necessity of having work that meets one's financial needs and responsibilities. Mary highlighted this struggle, discussed also by other participants, when she reflected on her next career move.

     "You know--why am I working? What do I really expect to get
     out of work? What kind of experience are you going to provide me
     besides just the money?" At the same time, she stated that if her
     stopgap job (which she described as a hobby) could evolve into a
     full-time job, "the salary is not really going to be very good, so
     I'm probably still going to have to find a part-time job to meet my
     expenses .... But it would be really helpful for me to get that,
     because it's been one of the few jobs in my entire life that I've
     really enjoyed."

Insight 2: Adults in transition want counselors who attend to the big picture. Several participants stressed the importance of counselors working with career clients to see the whole picture of the transition, with particular attention to psychological stressors. Suzanne stressed this idea when she explained, "People don't understand that, in a career transition, it's the whole person. It's the family, the friends, social, and employment." She added that "everyone ought to be asked about their mental status at the beginning and continuously throughout." Joe also wanted to ensure that counselors would notice the whole picture, proposing, "It's almost like you need some counseling for you, counseling as a couple, and then some type of motivation, kind of grouped into one."

Insight 3: Personal transitions are rooted in significant changes in the world of work itself. Finally, adults facing career transition understand that the world of work is rapidly changing. Twelve of the 18 participants considered it very important to gain more education or learn some new skills, whether formally or informally. Several reported a concern that their skills were outdated or might become outdated soon because of the constant change taking place in the world of work. Related to change in the world of work, several participants expressed disappointment that loyalty and mutual interest between a company and an employee had faded away--an awareness that made an adult career transition even more difficult.

Discussion

The results of this study highlight the value of an adaptive approach to a job loss. The five career adaptability themes that emerged from the interviews could be summarized as follows: Adaptive individuals get off to a good start, think about and plan for their future, anticipate change and react when they see it coming, are cautious about stopgap employment, and know how to achieve realistic goals. Given these five themes, it seems that career adaptability for these participants depended first and foremost on the components of planfulness (future orientation) and reality orientation. Individuals with a sense of planfulness, as well as a sense of realism about personal and contextual factors affecting the situation, have a head start when the transition begins. Such individuals are more likely to have accurate information and to have begun the kind of exploration that will be necessary in making a good transition. Consistent with the stage of rising discontent, proposed by O'Connor and Wolfe (1987, p. 806), an adaptive approach includes the ability to notice and act on internal changes that could have a significant impact on one's career life. The research presented in this article extends the understanding of rising discontent to include the external factors as well, such as a dissatisfied employer or changing market conditions--factors outside of oneself that have real potential to influence the career course. Acting with planfulness, whether in the face of discontent or not, decreases the likelihood that one will feel a sense of personal crisis when experiencing a career transition.

The preceding conceptualization offers a necessary starting point for a successful career transition, but individual circumstances complicate the situation. Financial pressure, family responsibilities, and the roles for which people are responsible seriously affect the way individuals view their prospects within the transition. When faced with external pressures (usually financial) to find employment after a job loss, some adults make a distinction between present and future work scenarios--the function of the present being simply to restabilize their situation financially, after which point career development (the future) can resume.

This perspective can significantly hinder achieving career satisfaction after a transition and represents an important topic for counseling. At the same time, the counselor who attends to the fear and frustration that often accompany serious financial concerns reduces the risk that a client will feel that his or her financial worries are not as significant as achieving the goal of career satisfaction. Counselors may be able to assist by helping clients understand the importance of viewing stopgap employment as a bridge or stepping stone toward their goal rather than as a detour. Such help will require persistence, creativity, and possibly some reliance on assistance from financial or consumer credit professionals to devise an interim financial plan during the career transition.

In a situation that is similar to the necessity of dealing with contextual issues, a career counselor must give attention to the intense emotion that can accompany a career transition, particularly a job loss, or risk losing the client. Again, balance is the goal. Fear can be realistic and a motivator for action. At the same time, fear that catapults an individual into thoughtless reaction--as opposed to thoughtful action--should be guarded against. This research supports the need for career counselors to be ready and willing to integrate a client's personal issues into the course of career counseling.

Many of the ideas presented here encourage counselors to promote a client's orientation toward the future through frequent exploration, day-dreaming, and the expectation of change. As career counselors, we promote this sense of future orientation and planfulness, but we would not propose a constant state of vigilance regarding the potential for job loss. Nor would we propose a "perpetual job search" that results in no sense of connection or loyalty to one's current organization. Super and Knasel (1981) defined career adaptability very simply as "readiness to cope with changing work and working conditions" (p. 195). Readiness, or a healthy awareness, best characterizes this proposal. Ideally, individuals will shift their perspective from one of hoping that they never have to endure a crisis--in this case an unexpected job loss--to the belief that change of some sort is likely and natural (O'Connor & Wolfe, 1987).

Lessons learned from these interviewees suggest that simple instructions for young adults to remember throughout their career journey will not suffice. One must expect career counseling to be challenging, and one must take an approach that integrates both career and noncareer issues. There is no formula. This idea was expressed well by one of the participants:

      I would say that as career counselors, it would be a pitfall
      to formulize the counseling and hope that you're going to
      catch 95% of the people in the formulas. I've had some
      unsuccessful career counseling experiences, and I think it was
      due to counselors being educated that when somebody comes in
      you've "gotta" do this first, and then you've "gotta" do that,
      and then you've "gotta" do that. And they're truly baffled if
      it's not helping the person.

Limitations and Future Considerations

Several limitations to this study can be noted, related in part to our method of research. Although 18 is not a small number of interviewees in a grounded theory approach, it is a relatively small number to rely on for defining the attributes of career adaptability. The small number also makes it difficult to compare across categories that might illustrate why people make the choices they do, such as time with a previous job, time since leaving the job, and education level. We might have increased the likelihood of recruiting African American participants by broadening the search across the region and across multiple agencies. Given the literature on cultural differences regarding time orientation (Sue & Sue, 1990) and the emphasis of a future perspective that is inherent in the concept of career adaptability, the greater emphasis placed on the past and present by certain cultures could influence the career adaptability of individuals within those cultures. Attending to this issue in future research would provide a valuable perspective on the interaction between career adaptability and cultural diversity. Although the use of peer reviewers served to "spread out" the risk of researcher bias in the analysis of the data, only the first author conducted interviews. It is only natural to expect that subtle biases operated in the way that information was attended to and in the choice of follow-up questions.

Summary

This research has highlighted the value of viewing career transition from a contextual perspective and the benefits of career adaptability for coping with job loss. Given the perspectives offered by the participants in this study, the difficult challenges and choices individuals face when confronted with job loss are clear. These participants highlighted important behaviors individuals can initiate upon the loss of a job as well as some of the contextual variables that have a positive or negative impact on progress in the career transition. Finally, career counselors who are skilled at integrating career and broader life concerns can help clients look to the future, anticipating transition as a normal part of career development.

Appendix

Interview Questions

* Tell me about your previous job.

* How satisfied were you in that position?

* Will you take me through a timeline of the things you've done to handle your career change since the time you found out you were going to lose your job? (Clarification: If I had been able to observe you from the time you lost your job until now, what would I have seen?)

* Could you describe what your initial reaction was to losing your job (that day and the weeks following)?

* Looking at the timeline, could you describe your attitude and emotions throughout the process? (Did they stay the same or change? How so?)

* How would you describe yourself as you're going through this process?

* Looking back, is there anything you wish you would have done differently, before or after the firing, to make things easier on yourself?

* Tell me what your goal is for how this process will turn out. (Or: What kind of work are you hoping to obtain by the end of this process?)

* How did you come to that decision?

* How confident are you that you can achieve that goal?

* Can you tell me what steps you plan to take from this point forward to reach your work goals? (Clarification: If I could observe you doing the kinds of things you plan to do, what would I see you doing?)

* From the time you first suspected you would lose your job, what was the atmosphere like at your work? What was work like?

* How prepared were you for the job loss?

* Overall, what kind of impact has the job loss had on your life?

* What kind of support have you had through all of this?

* What would you say is your primary motivation to make it through this process successfully?

* According to your answer on the screening question, you're handling things pretty well. What prompted you to rate your progress that way?

* If you had to name two or three things that have seemed most important to your progress during this time, what would they be? (Clarification: Could you give me an actual example of that?)

* Would you say there's anything particular about you that has led to the progress you're making?

OR

* According to your answer to the screening question, it doesn't sound like things have gone so well since you lost your job. Why do you think that is?

* If you had to name two or three things that have seemed most significant in hindering your progress, what would they be? (Clarification: Could you give me an actual example of that?)

* Would you say there's anything particular about you that has led to the difficulties you're having?

* If you could add a question to this interview, what would you add that would help fill in the blanks of your story? What am I missing?

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Christopher A. Ebberwein, Psychology Consultants, Wichita, Kansas; Thomas S. Krieshok, Psychology and Research in Education Department, University of Kansas; Jon C. Ulven, Counseling and Psychological Services, St. Cloud University; Ellie C. Prosser, Counseling Services, DePauw University. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Christopher A. Ebberwein, Psychology Consultants, 10222 W. Central, Wichita, KS 67212 (e-mail: [e-mail]).