Navigating Career Obstacles: The Role of Personality, Parental Influence, and Adaptability

Personality traits, parental career-related behaviours, and career adaptability have been shown to influence career development, but prior research has typically examined these factors in isolation. Parental career-related behaviours refer to actions such as support, interference, or disengagement in a child’s career decision-making. Career adaptability, in contrast, reflects an individual's capacity to manage career-related challenges through psychosocial strengths like confidence and control. Despite their theoretical relevance, these variables have rarely been studied together. Consequently, there remains a gap in the literature regarding how they jointly influence career anxiety, vocational self-concept, and career exploration in emerging adults. To address this, the present study analyzed survey data from 230 undergraduate students using hierarchical regression. The results demonstrated that career adaptability was the strongest predictor of both vocational self-concept and career exploration. Conversely, neuroticism, a personality trait associated with emotional instability, was the most robust predictor of career anxiety. Notably, parental career-related behaviours did not significantly predict any of the measured outcomes. Taken together, these findings emphasize the importance of adaptability in shaping early career development. Accordingly, career counseling interventions should prioritize adaptability training to improve student outcomes and foster more confident, autonomous career decision-making.