Being unemployed in the boundaryless career era: Does psychological mobility pay off?

In the notions of the boundaryless and self-directed careers, being able to adjust swiftly to different work and career circumstances is deemed to be an imperative component of career success. Also for unemployed individuals psychological mobility, i.e. the extent to which people can envision a variety of career options as viable opportunities for them, is assumed to be a key attitude. In this study, we examine whether psychological mobility stimulates or constraints unemployed jobseekers' search success. Hereto, we draw on data of 1840 Belgian unemployed individuals. As hypothesized, we find that psychologically mobile individuals spend more time searching for a job and are invited more often to a selection interview. However, on average they receive less job offers, since they also experience more constraints in their job search process. Overall, our study demonstrates that psychological mobility cannot straightforwardly be associated with positive career outcomes in every context or subpopulation and points to the necessity of taking structure and not only agency factors into account to fully grasp the outcomes of the boundaryless career.

► We examined the impact of psychological mobility on job search success.
► Psychological mobility increases search intensity and number of job interviews.
► However, it also increases perceived constraints in the job search process.
► Overall, psychological mobility is penalized rather than rewarded.
► As such, this study points to a potential downside of new careers.