Professional attitudes of employed young professionals and young professional who are looking for a job
The article is devoted to the use of rational and irrational attitudes among young professionals. A comparative analysis of young professionals who are employed and those who are unemployed and looking for a job (including those registered in employment centers) is carried out. The article also considers the socio-psychological barriers preventing professional self-fulfillment of young professionals. As a hypothesis, we assumed that there are differences in the attitudes and value-semantic orientations between young professionals who are employed and those who are looking for a job. The study involved 96 participants aged 23-25 having professions that require interaction with people. The following methods were used: J. Rotter’s Locus of Control Scale, A. Ellis’ method, Rokich’s method of value orientations, O.F. Potemkina’s method of diagnosing socio-psychological attitudes of personality, and the author’s Employment Features questionnaire. A comparative analysis of the questionnaires showed that employed young professionals were focused on the following values when choosing a job: “interesting work” (92%), “career opportunity” (85%) and “high salary” (68%), while those who are looking for a job believe that “the employer does not want to hire a young specialist” (68%), : have a “desire to work in the profession for three years and then quit the sphere” (88%) and are focused on such values as “prestigious position” (68%), “proximity to home” (68%) and “whatever place that will take me” (55%). The results of the survey indicate that young professionals who are looking for a job have an insufficiently high motivation for career growth, lack initiative and have an infantile attitude to choosing a job, which blocks professional self-realization of the individual. In contrast, employed respondents are focused on career growth. The respondents who are looking for a job have an insufficiently high motivation for career growth: they have a pronounced indicator of externality (70% of the studied sample), disharmonious orientations (80%) and low motivation (20%), since value-semantic orientations are poorly expressed in this group. The study revealed that young professionals who are looking for a job have irrational attitudes which must be taken into account in psychological counseling accompanying the process of job search in order to correct their picture of the world and their self-image as a professional.