Research has shown that people with a high level of self-efficacy are more likely to engage in vocational rehabilitation activities, tend to perform better in work environments, and be employed longer.

As a vocational rehabilitation professional working to support job-seekers with disabilities find and maintain quality employment, it’s important to consider job-seekers’ level of self-efficacy and its impact on how they approach goals, tasks, and challenges.

Give job-seekers opportunities to strengthen their confidence in their ability to exert control over their motivation, behavior, and social environment by:

• Providing counseling that recognizes
• Incorporating counseling on self-efficacy in the career exploration process, including:
  • Developing the ability to connect with others
  • Exploring family support for employment goals
  • Providing counseling around adapting to disability
  • Gaining knowledge about fatigue reduction and employment accommodations

People with a high level of self-efficacy:

• Make a greater effort to complete tasks and persevere in their efforts
• View challenging problems as tasks to be mastered
• Develop a deeper interest in the activities in which they participate
• Form a stronger sense of commitment to their interests and activities
• Recover quickly from setbacks and disappointments
• Are more likely to engage in healthy behaviors

People with a low level of self-efficacy:

• Are less likely to complete tasks and may give up easily
• Avoid challenging tasks
• Believe that difficult tasks and situations are beyond their capabilities
• Focus on personal failings and negative outcomes
• Quickly lose confidence in personal abilities
• Are less likely to engage in healthy behaviors

Beliefs around self-efficacy begin forming early in life as children deal with a wide variety of experiences, tasks, and situations. However, the growth of self-efficacy does not end during youth but continues to evolve throughout life as people acquire new skills, experiences, and understanding.¹

Vocational rehabilitation professionals can support job-seekers by providing access to experiences and feedback that strengthen self-efficacy. But first, it’s helpful to understand if your customer has a low or high level of self-efficacy, or somewhere in between.

There are a number of different scales that are used to evaluate an individual’s level of self-efficacy, including the General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE) and the Self-Efficacy Questionnaire. For a quick, informal assessment of a job-seekers level of efficacy, ask the following questions:

• Do you feel like you can handle problems if you are willing to work hard?
• Are you confident in your ability to achieve your goals?
• Do you feel like you can manage unexpected events that come up?
• Are you able to bounce back fairly quickly after stressful events?
• Do you feel like you can come up with solutions when you are facing a problem?
• Do you keep trying even when things seem difficult?
• Are you good at staying calm even in the face of chaos?
• Do you perform well even under pressure?
• Do you tend to focus on your progress rather than getting overwhelmed by all you still have to do?
• Do you believe that hard work will eventually pay off?

If the answer is yes to many or most of these questions, then chances are good the job-seeker has a fairly high level of self-efficacy.³ If the answer is no to many or most, it’s likely they would benefit from support to increase their self-efficacy.