Capturing Serendipity in Careers: An Evaluation of the Planned Happenstance Career Inventory With Lithuanian Undergraduates

In the contemporary world, career counseling professionals need to focus on skills that help people bring benefit from positive chances and minimize the damage of negative events. The Planned Happenstance Career Inventory (PHCI) was created to measure these skills. The main aim of the present study was to test the dimensionality and concurrent validity of the PHCI scores in a Lithuanian student sample. A heterogeneous sample of undergraduates participated in the study (N = 1,064). Confirmatory factor analyses revealed four interrelated planned happenstance skill factors. A fifth––the flexibility factor––was found to function in a separate manner. To further test for concurrent validity, the PHCI scores were correlated with a range of positive career development variables, namely, goal adjustment, academic major satisfaction, and vocational identity. The results supported the hypothesized links, thereby providing evidence on the validity of PHCI scores among Lithuanian students.