Evaluating the quality of the list of occupations recommended for further exploration

Abstract

Access to online career information increases the complexity of career decisions (choosing a major or job). When the number of alternatives is large, the first step is to compile a list of promising career alternatives for further exploration, often by using interest inventories (e.g., the Self-Directed Search). But what makes such a list useful? The judgments of 20 career counselors and 103 graduate students supported the hypothesis that higher list quality is associated with a greater similarity between the occupations on the list, fewer occupational fields represented by the occupations on the list, and a list length approximating seven occupations.