SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Organizational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1596847
This article is part of the Research TopicResignation and Strategic Retention: Shaping the Future WorkforceView all 12 articles
A Scoping Review of Job Search Self-Efficacy (JSSE) Over the Past Five Years: Antecedents, Mechanisms, Consequences, and Future Directions Based on SCT/SCCT
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Foundations of Education, Faculty of Educational Studies, Putra Malaysia University, Serdang, Malaysia
- 2Department of Science and Technical Education, Faculty of Educational Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia
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Against the backdrop of global labor market volatility, Job Search Self-Efficacy (JSSE) is critical for job seekers' persistence and success. Guided by Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) and Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), this scoping review synthesizes 22 empirical studies (2019–February 2025) to address three core questions: JSSE's antecedents, intervention mechanisms, and consequences. The results showed the following: (1) antecedents concentrated on individual traits (e.g., career adaptability, emotional intelligence) and contextual support (e.g., mentoring, positive job search events); (2) intervention mechanisms were dominated by simple mediation (e.g., JSSE mediating perceived employability and job search behavior) and single moderation (e.g., extraversion moderating JSSE-success links); and (3) consequences focused almost exclusively on short-term outcomes (e.g., job search intensity, job offers). Key gaps include homogeneous samples (over-reliance on university students), methodological limitations (dominant cross-sectional designs), and understudied long-term career/emotional consequences. This review strengthens the JSSE's theoretical connection to SCT/SCCT and provides targeted guidance for interventions while outlining directions for more inclusive and rigorous future research.
Keywords: Job Search Self-Efficacy (JSSE), Social cognitive career theory (SCCT), Antecedents, Intervention mechanisms, consequences, Scoping review
Received: 20 Mar 2025; Accepted: 20 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zheng, Mohd Puad and Ab. Jalil. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Mohd Hazwan Mohd Puad, hazwan@upm.edu.my
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