Within the behavioral approach, there are four orientations to career counseling:

1. Indirect: Focuses on linguistic variables that precede and elicit overt responses
2. Direct: Concentrates on the consequences of overt responses regardless of their result
3. Behavioral-theoretic: Pioneered by Goodstein, this approach draws upon principles from learning theory to explain career behaviors and to determine counseling methods for changing them
4. Behavioral-pragmatic: As developed by Krumboltz, the behavioral-pragmatic approach inductively and empirically identifies techniques that work to bring about behavioral changes