The career counseling field is dismally behind the times when it comes to career decision making apps. A career practitioner will be hard-pressed to find more than a handful (if even that) of apps designed specifically to enhance the career decision making process. Until that changes, career professionals have to rely on traditional tools of videos, websites, and pdfs, or be creative in finding potential applications of apps designed for other uses to our world. For example, cognitive restructuring is a powerful tool in addressing negative career thoughts, but no career belief cognitive restructuring apps exist. Thus, we have to lean on apps such as stress and anxiety companion and modify our instructions with clients to use them for career-related stress.

Career decision making is a decision making that is applied to career decisions, and involves career-specific information. There are theoretical approaches to career decision making such as Cognitive Information Processing theory and the CASVE Cycle but unfortunately, there is not an app yet for “that.” There is, however a fantastic generic decision making app called “Unstuck.” The app starts with the assumption that a user is stuck in a current decision, and takes the person through various exercises to help them become “unstuck.” These approaches are inclusive of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are contributing to that stuck experience.

Here’s a picture of what a final profile might look like:

In addition to helping to analyze the problem from various perspectives, standard advice is given on how to proceed, given the self-described issues. A next step is for career counseling and development researchers to explore the potential usefulness of this tool for career counseling clients. If you’ve used this tool with clients, we’d love to learn from your experience!