Assessing the effects of career counseling: The influence of working alliance and individual characteristics

This study examines the psychological and relational processes that occur in career counseling. Particularly, we examine the role of the working alliance and counselees' individual characteristics as variables accounting for the outcome of the career counseling process. The sample consists of 101 counselees having undertaken an individual career counseling intervention. The satisfaction of the counselees with the intervention, pre/post levels of career decision difficulties (CDDQ), the working alliance (WAI), personality dimensions (NEO-FFI-R), and sociodemographics were assessed. A significant decrease of counselees' career decision difficulties throughout the intervention was observed, t(87) = 9.27;p < 0.001; d = 0.77. Results also indicate a strong positive link between the working alliance and the counselees' satisfaction, r=0.54; p < 0.001, and a negative link between the working alliance and the level of career decision difficulties at the end of the intervention, r= -0.3 1; p < 0.01. Moreover, some personality dimensions, namely neuroticism and concientiousness, account for the explanation of the observed outcome. Nevertheless, personality and sociodemographics do not seem to moderate the relation between the working alliance and the post intervention level of career decision difficulties. This study demonstrates that career counseling outcomes do not only depend on cognitive factors, such as the amount and the quality of information about self and the occupations, as it was suggested in the past, but also rely on affective and relational parameters. (C) 2008 Societe francaise de psychologie. Publie par Elsevier Masson SAS. Tons droits reserves.