Personality traits, work experience and GPA as predictors of Career Adaptability in College

Career adaptability is becoming a more and more important psychosocial construct in career counseling. It refers to the capability to adapt and mange career tasks and challenges. The main goal of the current paper was to investigate the effects of socio-demographic characteristics, work experience, GPA and HEXACO-60 on career adaptability, and its subscales (concerns, control, curiosity, confidence). Data was collected from 328 college students, from the Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca. The main aim of the study was to investigate whether the HEXACO-60 is as useful as the Big5. The six dimensions test is also a good predictor of career adaptability, except for the Emotionality dimension. In this sample, work experience was not a predictor for career adaptability, even if they were correlated. Career adaptability only in Step 2 was predicted by GPA, while in step 3 by father’s educational level. Our findings support that HEXACO-60 personality inventory is useful for understanding and revealing the predictors of career adaptability.