Career guidance is a field that has evolved over a century. Career guidance instruments are used as tools in the process of providing career guidance. A key clientele of career guidance providers are young adults, and several career guidance instruments have been developed especially for them. Though extensive and rich, the knowledge in this area is scattered and has several complex issues that need investigation and could therefore benefit from a structured literature review. We reviewed 369 journal articles published between 1973 and 2023 from 5 electronic databases using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses checklist ( Moher et al., 2009 ). This 50-year review of articles on career guidance instruments for young adults includes (a) a profiling of papers, (b) details of career guidance and career guidance instruments used by researchers, (c) a comprehensive critique of the existing literature—identifying ‘what we do not know’, and (d) 17 actionable and specific research suggestions around methods, use of theory, the design and development, and the conceptualisation of career guidance instruments for young adults. In doing so, we specify the way forward, or ‘where we need to go’, in researching career guidance for young adults in general and, more specifically, the instruments used by identifying theoretical, conceptual and methodological gaps in the same. In our article, we also highlight ‘where we need to go’ from a more practical perspective, highlighting the shared responsibility of all stakeholders, including policymakers and career guidance practitioners.
Liyanage et al. (2026) studied this question.