Article Working Alliance as a Moderator and a Mediator of Career Counseling Effectiveness

This study analyzed the role of working alliance in individual career counseling. The level of career decision difficulties and satisfaction with life of 188 clients was assessed at the beginning and at the end of career counseling. Clients ’ perceived working alliance was assessed after the third session, and their satisfaction with the intervention (SWI) was assessed at the end of the intervention. Results showed that working alliance (1) moderated the decrease of lack of career information, (2) pre-dicted SWI, and (3) played a mediator role in the decrease of inconsistent career information. The study confirmed the importance of relational factors in career counseling, particularly of the client– counselor agreement about intervention goals and tasks. Keywords working alliance, career counseling outcomes and processes, career decision difficulties, satisfaction with life, satisfaction with the intervention, mediation and moderation Career counseling is considered a particular type of personal counseling, adopting intervention methods, and techniques adapted to clients who present career-oriented demands (Gysbers, Hepp-ner, & Johnston, 2009). Therefore, there is a need to examine its specific effectiveness in terms o