How Do Social Support and Personal Resilience Assure Confidence in Vocational Choice in Times of the Pandemic?

As a global crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic struck everyone hard. As an extraordinary, unforeseeable, and uncontrollable event, it qualifies as a career shock. Since young people early in their careers were in crucial stages of their development at the time social distancing started, they specifically suffered. According to Conservation of Resources Theory (COR Theory), individuals with higher resources are less affected by challenges. Resilience and social support are important during crises, as they help in dealing with setbacks. Our study followed a group of German bachelor students (N = 797) at three time points: in January 2020, during the first period of social distancing in April, and afterwards in June 2020. We assume that individuals with high resilience and support network quality have fewer thoughts about their career as consequence of the pandemic and thus cope better and stay confident in their vocational choice. Findings reveal that especially resilience influences the thought process triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic: more resilient students also think less about their career as a consequence of the pandemic. Furthermore, at the same measurement point, those thought processes influenced the confidence in vocational choice negatively. These results, aligning with COR Theory, underline the importance of resources in dealing with career shocks. Furthermore, they show that those thought processes have a direct influence on confidence in vocational choice, possibly influencing individuals’ career paths. Since both resilience and social networks can be influenced, we recommend different measures for universities, students, and society in coping with the aftermath of the pandemic.