1. Classic Career Theory Part One Holland’s theory of
vocational personalities
and
work environments

4. Holland’s theory is founded upon the following propositions:
‘1. In our culture, most persons can be categorized as one of six types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, or Conventional.
2. There are six model environments: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, or Conventional.
3. People search for environments that will let them exercise their skills and abilities, express their attitudes and values, and take on agreeable problems and roles.
4. Behavior is determined by an interaction between personality and environment.’ (Holland, 1992, p.4)

5. The ‘RIASEC’ typology
The acronym RIASEC is commonly used to summarise Holland’s typology (i.e. Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional)

6. Realistic
Likes to work with animals, tools, or machines; generally avoids social activities like teaching, healing, and informing others;
Has good skills in working with tools, mechanical or electrical drawings, machines, or plants and animals;
Values practical things you can see, touch, and use like plants and animals, tools, equipment, or machines; and
Sees self as practical, mechanical, and realistic.

7. Investigative
Likes to study and solve maths or science problems; generally avoids leading, selling, or persuading people;
Is good at understanding and solving science and maths problems; values science; and
Sees self as precise, scientific, and intellectual.

8. Artistic
Likes to do creative activities like art, drama, crafts, dance, music, or creative writing; generally avoids highly ordered or repetitive activities;
Has good artistic abilities -- in creative writing, drama, crafts, music, or art;
Values the creative arts -- like drama, music, art, or the works of creative writers; and
Sees self as expressive, original, and independent.

9. Social
Likes to do things to help people -- like, teaching, nursing, or giving first aid, providing information; generally avoids using machines, tools, or animals to achieve a goal;
Is good at teaching, counselling, nursing, or giving information;
Values helping people and solving social problems; and
Sees self as helpful, friendly, and trustworthy.

10. Enterprising
Likes to lead and persuade people, and to sell things and ideas; generally avoids activities that require careful observation and scientific, analytical thinking;
Is good at leading people and selling things or ideas;
Values success in politics, leadership, or business; and
Sees self as energetic, ambitious, and sociable.

11. Conventional
Likes to work with numbers, records, or machines in a set, orderly way; generally avoids ambiguous, unstructured activities
Is good at working with written records and numbers in a systematic, orderly way;
Values success in business; and
Sees self as orderly, and good at following a set plan.

12. Each RIASEC type is defined on the basis of observable, and thereby, measurable interests and skills.
This is also translated in terms of self identity – e.g. a Conventional type seeing themselves as ‘orderly’ and ‘good at following a set plan’
Here Holland emphasises skills that can be observed and measured (indeed evidenced – e.g via a CV or ‘competence-based’ interview).

13. Holland’s ‘Hexagon Model’
Holland developed his RIASEC typology of personality types in conjunction with what is known as the ‘Hexagon Model’ to produce a powerful organising schema for the analysis and measurement of individual interests and work environments

14. Realistic Investigative
Conventional Artistic
Enterprising Social
Degree of Consistency Personality Patterns
High RI, RC, IR, IA, AI, AS
SA, SE, ES, EC, CE, CR
Medium RA, RE, IS, IC, AR, AE,
SI, SC, EA, ER, CS, CI
Low RS, IE, AC, SR, EI, CA

15. Examples of Holland’s consistency indicators
A ‘Realistic and Investigative’ vocational personality profile has a high degree of consistency, i.e.
a ‘Realistic’ type sees self as ‘practical, mechanical, and realistic’. Similarly, an ‘Investigative’ type sees self as ‘precise, scientific, and intellectual’. Holland would suggest that these characteristics are consistent with each other.
Conversely, an ‘Artistic and Conventional’ vocational personality profile has a low degree of consistency, i.e.
an ‘Artistic’ type sees self as ‘expressive, original, and independent’, whereas a ‘Conventional’ type sees self as ‘orderly, and good at following a set plan’. Holland would suggest that these characteristics are inconsistent with each other

16. An important implication of Holland’s notion of consistency is as follows:
A person with a highly consistent vocational personality profile is more likely to find a suitable and satisfying occupation, in comparison to a person with low consistency,
i.e. for an ‘Artistic and Conventional’ person, there may be few occupations to be found that will offer the opportunity to be both orderly and routine and expressive and original.

17. The Hexagon provides a heuristic from which a detailed diagnostic system is derived.
The implementation of this system relies on the administration of interest (pace, personality) tests such as the ‘Self-Directed Search’ (SDS)
The indicators of Holland’s diagnostic system can be summarised as follows…………

18. Consistency, addresses the degree of internal coherence of
an individual’s RIASEC profile.
Consistency is determined by utilising the spatial positioning
of the interest types as they appear on the Hexagon.
For example, if an individual scores most highly on ‘Realistic’
and ‘Investigative’ then, due to the proximity of these two
types on the Hexagon, the individual is deemed to have a
consistent profile.
Conversely, a high score on ‘Enterprising’ and ‘Investigative’
interests, which appear as opposites on the Hexagon’s
perimeter, would be judged as evidence of inconsistency.

19. Congruence, relates to the match between the
individual’s personality and their current or potential
work environments.
Congruence is measured by the degree of fit between
the RIASEC profile of the person and that of the
recipient environment.

20. Differentiation refers to the relative strength of the
interest types within an individual’s RIASEC profile.
Low differentiation is indicated by a flat profile of
test scores, whereas high differentiation is indicated
by a peaked profile.
According to Holland, differentiation can be
associated to career decision making – a person
with high differentiation being well positioned to
make career decisions; conversely, a person with
low differentiation may experience difficulty in
making a career decision.

21. Identity refers to the degree of clarity of ‘the picture of one’s goals, interests and talents’ (Holland, 1992, p.5).
The measurement of identity draws from the differentiation and consistency indicators to define the strength of personalities and work environments
A person with highly consistent and differentiated personality profile will have a high level of clarity about who they are in vocational terms.
Conversely, a person with an inconsistent, undifferentiated personality profile will have a low level of clarity about who they are in vocational terms.
A person with a clear sense of vocational identity would be well positioned to make career decisions

22. The RIASEC typology and the diagnostic indicators of Congruence, Consistency, Differentiation, and Identity, provide the key components of Holland’s organising schema.
As already indicated, this schema extends beyond the measurement of the person to the measurement of the work environment……

23. People
= RIASEC
Work Environments
= RIASEC
Artistic - Social
Artistic - Social

24. ‘Occupational environments are classified in a manner similar to the classification of personality types. A census can be conducted of the percentage of employees of a given type in an organisation, thus characterising its ‘personality pattern’. (Spokane, 1996, pp.47-48)
Examples of this type of census data can be found in the ‘Dictionary of Holland Occupational Codes’, which lists over 12,000 occupations by their three-letter RIASEC code.
Further examples are ‘The Occupations Finder’ and ‘The Educational Opportunities Finder’, both of which accompany the SDS test.

25. Strengths:
Easy to administer
An ‘elegant’ theory – systematically organises the complex
world of career
High face validity
Weaknesses:
Focuses exclusively on interests – values and beliefs
not addressed
Context free (self) assessment of interests
Measures a point in time – career over time not addressed