Role of Career Resilience Before Employment and Job Crafting for New Employees’ Vocational Identity Formation When Facing Reality Shock

The current study had two aims. Aim 1 was to clarify the relationship between the degree of pre-employment career resilience and the experience of reality shock after entering companies. Aim 2 was to examine a causal model in which, when new workers face reality shock, career resilience possessed before employment promotes job crafting, resulting in vocational identity formation. Surveys were conducted three times. The first survey measured career resilience and vocational identity before employment, and the second survey measured job crafting, career resilience, vocational identity, and reality shock after employment. The third survey asked individuals who experienced reality shock about components of job crafting that were effective in vocational identity formation. The number of usable data who completed both the first and second survey was 133 (36 men and 97 women; the mean age was 22). The third survey yielded usable data from 27 participants (8 men and 19 women). Regarding Aim 1, a t -test revealed no difference in pre-employment career resilience between participants with and without reality shock. Regarding Aim 2, the results of path analysis using data from the first and second survey and analysis using qualitative data from the third survey showed that optimism about the future, a component of pre-employment career resilience, played a role in forming vocational identity through cognitive crafting. These results suggest that, to overcome reality shock and form vocational identity, university students’ development of career resilience, especially optimism about the future, should be supported before entering companies.