Holland's career interest theory: proposed in 1959 by John Holland, a professor of psychology at Johns Hopkins University and a famous career guidance expert. This theory believes that a person's personality type and interests are closely related to his profession. Interest is a huge driving force for people's activities. Occupations with professional interests can improve people's enthusiasm, and there is a high correlation between professional interests and personality. Holland divided personality into six types: realistic, research-oriented, artistic, social, corporate and conventional.

Holland compiled the Career Preference Scale (VPI), which was revised and improved into the "Self-oriented Search Test Scale" (SDS). After decades of development, this theory has become a widely used career guidance theory.

Development of Interest Tests: Research on Interest Tests can be traced back to the early 20th century. In 1912, Thorndike explored the relationship between interest and ability. In 1915, Zhan Muss developed a questionnaire on interest, marking the beginning of research on the interest test system. In 1927, Strong compiled the earliest career interest test - the Strong career interest questionnaire. In 1939, Kud published the Kud hobby questionnaire.

Development of theories of predecessors: In 1953, Holland compiled the Career Preference Scale and developed self-guided exploration on this basis (1969), and proposed the theory of "matching personality traits with work environment" in 1970. This theory was developed based on the theory of Parsons' trait factor. Parsons emphasized the matching relationship between personal traits and career choices. Holland further proposed the personality type theory, believing that career choices are the reaction and extension of personal personality. , Interest is personality, and the results of the interest scale can represent personality traits. At the same time, this theory also originates from Holland's own career counseling experience and research-formed career counseling model, that is, through career and personality type analysis, it helps individuals choose suitable careers. This theory is simple and easy to understand and is used by the latest professional analysis published by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The core assumption of Holland's career theory is that people can be divided into six categories, each type has corresponding operational definitions and contents, and the matching of personality and career environment is the basis for forming career satisfaction and sense of accomplishment. The characteristics and suitable typical occupations are as follows:

Realistic (R): Basic personality tendencies are professions that like regular specific labor and jobs that require basic operating skills, but lack social skills, are not good at communicating, and are not suitable for social professions. Typical occupations include skilled occupations (such as general labor, technicians, repairmen, etc.) and technical occupations (such as photographers, mechanical assemblers, etc.).

Research-oriented (I): A profession with a research nature such as intelligence, rationality, precision, and criticality, prefers abstract, analytical, independent targeted tasks, but lacks leadership skills. Typical occupations include scientific researchers, engineers, computer programmers, doctors, system analysts, etc.

Artistic type (A): Has personality traits such as imagination, impulse, intuition, idealism, creativity, and not value reality, and is not good at work. Typical professions include art (actor, director, art designer, sculptor, architect, photographer, advertising producer), music (singer, composer, band conductor), literature (novelist, poet, drama writer).

Social type (S): The basic personality tendency is to have personality traits such as cooperation, friendly, social, good at speaking, and strong insight. They like social interactions, care about social issues, and have the ability to teach others. Typical occupations include educators and social workers.

Enterprise type (E): has personality traits such as risky, ambition, arbitrary, optimistic, confident, and energetic, and likes to engage in careers of leadership and corporate nature. Typical occupations include project managers, sales staff, marketing managers, government officials, corporate leaders, etc.

Regular type (C): has personality traits such as compliant, prudence, conservative, practical, and steady, and likes systematic and organized work tasks. Typical occupations include office staff, secretary, accountant, typist, administrative assistant, library administrator, cashier, etc. > Table 1: Table of correspondence between workers and occupation types

Holland uses hexagons to indicate the relationship between six major types, six corners represent six occupational oriented types, six types of workers are associated with six types of occupations, and each type is between the other types. There are different degrees of relationships, which can be roughly divided into three categories:

Adjacent relationships: such as RI, IR, IA, AI, AS, SA, SE, ES, EC, CE, RC and CR. There are many common points between the two types of individuals that belong to this relationship. For example, people with actual R and research I do not prefer interpersonal communication, and there are fewer opportunities to contact people in both career environments.

Separation relationships: such as RA, RE, IC, IS, AR, AE, SI, SC, EA, ER, CI and CS. The two types of individuals that belong to this relationship have fewer commonalities than adjacent relationships.

Relative relationship: The types at diagonal positions on the hexagon are relative relationships, such as RS, IE, AC, SR, EI and CA. Relative relationship personality types have few commonalities, and it is rare for a person to have a strong interest in both career environments in relative relationships at the same time.

Adaptation relationship: Holland believes that only by combining the same type of people with the same type of occupation can we achieve an adaptive state and the talents and enthusiasm of workers can be well displayed. Generally speaking, the occupational correlation of adjacent relationships is higher, followed by separation relationships, and the relative correlation is weak. The greater the occupational correlation coefficient between the two types of people, the higher the adaptability. If unified at one point, it means that the type of workers is highly correlated with the type of occupation, and the staffing is the best choice.

Reality Choice: Most people actually don’t have only one sexual orientation. If the two professional orientations are close to each other, it is easier to choose a career; if the professional orientations are opposite to each other, you will face more hesitation when choosing a career. In real life career choices, individuals do not necessarily choose a career environment that corresponds to their interests, because individuals are often a combination of multiple types of interest, and the factors that affect career choice are multifaceted and do not completely based on the type of interest. , it is also necessary to refer to the professional needs of society and the actual possibilities of obtaining a career. When choosing a career, they will constantly compromise and seek to be separated from the adjacent career environment or even from the career environment. Individuals need to gradually adapt to the work environment. > Figure 1: Holland's hexagonal relationship diagram of career interests, six corners represent reality (R), research (I), artistic (A), social (S), enterprise (E), The six occupational oriented types of conventional type (C) use different lines to represent the relationships between different types, such as adjacent relationships, separation relationships and relative relationships.

Holland compiles a Career Preference Scale (VPI) to measure an individual's career interests and then find a career that suits you.

Scale composition: VPI has seven parts, the first part is the ideal profession in your mind; the second part is the activity you are interested in; the third part is the activity you are good at or competent; the fourth part is the profession you like; the fifth part is The part is a brief review of ability types; the sixth part is statistics and determination of career tendencies; the seventh part is professional values. Among them, the second, third and fourth parts are divided into six occupation types, with 10 questions in each type.

Test example: Passing a series of questions such as "Do you like to assemble and repair electrical appliances or toys (realistic activities), "Can you play musical instruments (artistic abilities), " "Are you interested in the profession of aircraft mechanics (realistic profession) ” etc., let the subjects make choices to understand their professional interests, abilities and preferences.

Self-oriented search test scale (SDS): a scale developed based on VPI.

Scale composition: consists of four parts: activities, abilities, occupations, and self-estimation. The activity section lists a series of typical and common life or work activities, requiring the subjects to make a judgment on these activities, and "like" and "dislike"; the ability section lists many general work or tasks, requiring the subjects to judge themselves. Whether these tasks or jobs can be completed; the occupation section lists a series of occupation names, requiring subjects to make choices about these occupations by "like" or "dislike"; self-evaluation requires subjects to use their peers as reference objects, Make a rating of the level of each listed abilities.

Results analysis: In each part, the designed activities, jobs, occupations or abilities are arranged in order of 6 types, including R, I, A, S, E, and C. SDS does not need to set a normal model according to the population. It first calculates the scores of R, I, A, S, E, and C in the 4 parts within the individual, and then adds the scores of the 4 parts to achieve R, I, A, The total scores of S, E, and C are arranged in order from high to low. The letters arranged in the first position indicate that the subject has typical occupational interest characteristics in the corresponding category, and the letters arranged in the first three positions form a occupational code (such as RCI). According to the occupation code, you can find the corresponding occupation group. The occupation in this occupation group is the occupation that is most suitable for the subject, such as RAI: ​​Painter; IAR: Physicist.

Holland's career interest theory has guiding significance in the selection, employment, training, promotion and other aspects of human resources management:

Selection criteria: The criteria for selecting people are first of all personality and interests, and secondly knowledge and skills, because personality and interests are relatively stable, and knowledge and skills can be obtained through training and learning.

Performance Management: In terms of performance management, everyone cannot be forced to use the same method or the same procedure.

Employee training: The training time and funding should be mainly used to help employees understand their interests and strengthen their interests, rather than overcome their weaknesses.

Employee promotion: The promotion and use of employees should be arranged according to their personality, interests and values, and different promotion ladders are not blindly promoted to management positions.

Personnel placement principles: Human resource managers should adhere to two principles when selecting and relocating personnel. One is to arrange work according to the combination of employees who score the top three among the six types; the other is to not arrange employees to enter and have their own interests. A completely different career environment, that is, the type of career with the lowest score.

Theoretical development value: Holland clearly puts forward the personality concept of professional interests, which will make people's understanding of professional interests qualitatively change. He organically combined the study of career environment with the study of individual differences in career interests, and the previous research of the two was relatively independent. He compiled two occupational interest scales: career preference scale and self-oriented search table. As a career interest survey tool, he strives to find two matching career abilities for each occupational interest, which promotes interest tests and ability tests. A combination of career guidance and career consultation. In addition, he applied the theory of professional personality type to the occupational entry dictionary formulated by the U.S. Department of Labor and compiled the "Holland Career Code Dictionary", providing a wide range of application prospects for all types of people to search for suitable occupations by their occupational interest types.

Corporate recruitment value: Career interests are the most important factor in the process of individual matching and occupation, and there are obvious individual differences in career interests. The division of occupations in modern society is very different, with different attractiveness and requirements for individuals, and their own situations are also different, resulting in large differences in career interests. Different professions have special requirements for employees' career interests. Modern human resource management principles emphasize the matching of people and positions, including the matching of knowledge, skills and personality interests. When a company recruits new employees, it conducts a career interest assessment on the applicants, which can understand their professional interests and personality types, test whether the career environment provided by the company matches it, thereby recruiting suitable talents, reducing recruitment blindness, and giving new employees suitable jobs. environment, use its intelligence and talents.

Career choice and success value: Career interest is the most important factor in career choice and is a powerful spiritual force. The career interest test can help individuals clarify their subjective orientation, obtain appropriate activity situations and fully invest. When the profession an individual is engaged in matches the type of interest, the potential abilities can be maximized and his work performance is more significant. Career interest tests can help individuals understand the types of interests and subjective tendencies, avoid blindness in career choices, and help college students and people who lack career experience to make good career choices, design and adjustments, and develop professional abilities. They are an important factor in career success. .

[A foreign-funded IT company in Guangzhou frequently receives complaints from customers to front-line employees. The Human Resources Department investigated and found that among the more than 300 front-line employees of the company's sales department, after-sales service department, and consulting department, there are differences in the praise and customer scores of the superior supervisor. After using the Holland professional interest theory test and interview, it was found that among the 121 employees who received high scores from customers, social employees accounted for 96% and corporate employees accounted for 89%; 130 employees who received high scores from superior supervisors Among them, regular employees account for 98%. In addition, for the two managers responsible for recruitment, 99% of the employees selected by Manager Li, 82% of the regular type and 56% of the social type. Manager Li himself is the research type; among the employees selected by Manager Zhang, 93 social type and 93 social type and 93 %, conventional type accounts for 68%, research type accounts for 16%, and Manager Zhang himself is social type].

Problem analysis: Social and corporate employees are easily praised by customers because social people like to serve others, corporate people are good at communicating, eloquent, and can influence others; regular employees are easily praised by superiors because of their respect. Authoritative and down-to-earth work. At the same time, the supervisors in charge of recruitment tend to hire people of their own type.

Solution: The Human Resources Department proposed a recommendation report to adjust the recruitment system and performance management system. First, abandon the supervisory assessment system and replace it with the performance management system with customer satisfaction scores; second, take the professionalism to be social or enterprise-oriented as recruitment. The standards for serving customers' front-line employees; third, change the recruitment procedure to first pass the human resources center test, select social or enterprise candidates, and then the Human Resources Department recommends it to the department manager to determine the final candidate.

Implementation effect: After half a year of reform, the proportion of social and enterprise front-line employees of the company increased by 26%, and the average customer score increased by 21%, successfully solving the problem of continued low customer satisfaction.