“Be Perfect in Every Respect”: The Relationship Between Perfectionism, Career Adaptability and Career Decision-Making Diculties of College Students

Background Considering the weakening of the economy and the shrinking of jobs under the current global epidemic crisis, the employment of college graduates is facing unprecedented and cruel competition. However, many college students lack a reasonable understanding and orientation of themselves, which led to them have high expectations for future careers and do not consider whether they are competent or not. Due to a lack of ability and self-condence, they appear to be at a loss and hesitant when facing career choices. Methods We takes 400 college students in China and conducts a questionnaire survey on college students' perfectionism, career adaptability, and career decision-making diculties to explore the relationship among them. Results


Abstract Background
Considering the weakening of the economy and the shrinking of jobs under the current global epidemic crisis, the employment of college graduates is facing unprecedented and cruel competition. However, many college students lack a reasonable understanding and orientation of themselves, which led to them have high expectations for future careers and do not consider whether they are competent or not. Due to a lack of ability and self-con dence, they appear to be at a loss and hesitant when facing career choices.

Methods
We takes 400 college students in China and conducts a questionnaire survey on college students' perfectionism, career adaptability, and career decision-making di culties to explore the relationship among them.

Results
College students' perfectionism, career adaptability, and career decision-making di culties are signi cantly correlated. Positive perfectionism has a negative predictive effect on career decision-making di culties, and career adaptability plays a completely mediating role in it. Negative perfectionism plays a positive predictive role in career decision-making di culties, and career adaptability plays a part in mediating roles.

Conclusions
College students will more or less pursue "perfect", but often with their own preferences to pursue, can not be done based on the rational analysis of things to pursue perfect. College students have higher positive perfectionism and negative perfectionism, and their career adaptability is also at a higher level, but there is a higher degree of career decision-making di culties. Positive perfectionism of college students can reduce the di culty of career decision-making, and career adaptability plays a completely mediating role in it. Negative perfectionism of college students will lead to di culties in career decision-making, in which career adaptability plays a mediating role

Introduction
Faced with the economic impact of the epidemic and the shortage of talents in the labor market, the increasing number of graduates has led to the reduction of job opportunities for college students [1]. The mismatch between the students trained by the school and the talents demanded by the employing unit aggravates the employment di culties for graduates [2]. The employment problem of college graduates not only gets the close attention of students and parents but also becomes the focus of the attention of schools and society [3]. Faced with the serious employment situation, the phenome-non of college students' di culties in choosing a job and various negative emotions have made colleges and universities pay more and more attention to psychological and career counseling for college students [4].
Some scholars believe that the di culty in career decision-making of college students is due to the high expectations of their careers [5]. Perfectionism is thought to have two sides. One view is that people see it as a negative personality trait [6], perfectionism would set a higher goal in order to meet their own or the expectations of others around, which always bring fear failure, and hesitation when they made career decisions. This is called maladaptive perfectionism [7]. Some researchers also mention perfectionism as a negative attitude of graduates in the employment counseling process [8]. However, another view holds that the pursuit of excellence and perfection is the key to their success [9]. This is called adaptive good perfectionism [10]. Among them, adaptive good perfectionism refers to self-perfectionism and tends to perfectionism's active pursuit of high standards. Mal-adaptive perfectionism is socially determined perfectionism, which means that perfectionists feel important to others and demand high standards from themselves. In this way, it seems that the in uence of perfectionism on career decision-making di culties can be explored from both positive and negative aspects respectively.
Besides, college students' career adaptability has become a problem that people gradually pay attention to [11]. Resilience is an emerging variable in the eld of career development and core competency in addressing career challenges posed by the rapidly changing realities of society [12]. Individuals with high career adaptability can adapt to the changes of career roles more quickly and better cope with the di culties and unexpected situations encountered in work [13]. Germijs and Verschueren (2007) show that young people's career adaptability has a signi cant impact on the quality of planning, exploration, con dence, and decision-making during their career transitions [14]. Career decisions are easier to make if you have reasonable planning, positive exploration, and therefore strong con dence in career transition. It seems that career adaptability can promote the improvement of career decision-making ability, reduce the occurrence of career decision-making di culties. In addition, career adaptability is also affected by individual and other antecedent variables, such as openness, preciseness, extroversion, and a nity [15].
However, positive perfectionists tend to set exible goals according to their own characteristics, such as being able to actively pursue organizational rationality and maintaining an optimistic attitude towards the results. However, negative perfectionists tend to set rigid goals, fear of failure, and are prone to anxiety [16]. It can be deduced that positive perfectionism can promote career adaptability, while negative perfectionism has the opposite effect. Therefore, career adaptability is included in the present study as an intermediary variable in the process of perfectionism affecting career decision-making di culties.

Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between perfectionism and career adaptability and career decision-making di culties from both positive and negative aspects. On the one hand, it explores the predictive role of positive perfectionism on college students' career decision-making di culties and tests the intermediary role of career adaptability. On the other hand, it explores the predictive role of negative perfectionism on career decision-making di culties and tests the intermediary role of career adaptability. By exploring the psychological mechanism behind college students' career decision-making di culties, especially how the personality trait of perfectionism in uences college students' career decision-making through career adaptability in both positive and negative aspects, thus providing help for the intervention of decision-making di culties.

Perfectionism
Perfectionism has different de nitions in academics and work. Some elites regard it as an important criterion for success, which means perfectionists pursue perfection and excellence in their work. In academic work, researchers regard it as a negative personality characteristic. Since the concept was put forward, many scholars have discussed its structure, such as the division of perfectionism [17,18] and compilation of scale [19]. Besides, many researchers have studied the relationship between perfectionism, related concepts, and personality. For example, the ve-factor model of personality [16], resilience of college students [20], test anxiety [21], and career development [22,23].

Career Adaptability
Career adaptability is an important factor for an individual to effectively cope with career uncertainty and job role ambiguity, and it refers to the individual's coping ability when dealing with the changes of current and expected tasks and career roles [13,24]. Career adaptability plays an important role in realizing sustainable development [25]. Cultivating career adaptability can promote the transition from school to work, thus improving the chances for individuals to nd high-quality jobs and helping individuals to transform from university to work [26,27]. Many scholars have measured career adaptability, including the United States, Italy, and China [28,29]. Besides, In the relationship between career adaptability and positive psychological characteristics, the research includes the relationship between career adaptability and life satisfaction of workers with intellectual disabilities [30] and parents of children with mild intellectual disabilities [31], optimism, resilience, and life satisfaction of adolescents [32]. On the relationship between career adaptability and personality, the research mainly includes self-esteem, EQ, active personality, personality characteristics, and the relationship between internal entrepreneurship and career adaptability [33][34][35]. In addition, some researchers have conducted follow-up research or intervention re-research on career adaptability [36, 37].

Career Decision-Making Di culties
Career decision-making di culties include indecision and indecision, which refers to the decision-making state of most people [38]. Some researchers focus on the relationship between career decision-making di culties and personality, emotion, core self-evaluation, ambiguity management, and others [38][39][40][41]. In addition, many researchers have discussed the in uencing factors of career decision-making di culties from the perspective of career, including parents' expectation, cultural value orientation, career exploration, creative self-e cacy, social support, future time view, childhood environmental adversity, career decision-making self-e cacy, and career decision-making [38-41].

Perfectionism, Career Adaptability, and Career Decision-Making Di culties
At present, there is insu cient research on perfectionism, career adaptability, and career decision-making di culty, which mainly involves the research between two variables. The study of the relationship between perfectionism and career decision-making di culties mainly includes the role of perfectionism and big ve personalities in career indecision [43], the relationship among perfectionism, negative professional thinking, and career decision-making self-e cacy [44], and the in uence of perfection-ism on career pressure and career decision [44]. In these studies, more researchers focus on the self-e cacy of career decision-making. For example, there is a positive correlation between parental support, career decision-making self-e cacy, and career adaptability of Chinese college students and Turkish high school students [45,46]. In the study of the relationship between perfectionism and career adaptability, the main research object is college students. For example, to explore whether social support and anxiety can predict students' perfectionism. Self-directed perfectionism positively predicts career adaptability, while social prescriptive perfectionism negatively predicts career adaptability [47].
In addition, The Social Expectation Model [48] explains that [49]perfectionists are harsh, which makes it easy for people in career choices to achieve perfection through negative evaluation, and then promotes the emergence of negative perfectionism. The Career Decision-Making Di culty Model [49] points out that career decision-making di culties consist of di culties before and during career decision-making.
When people who want to make ideal decisions encounter unreasonable external information and di culties self-adjustment process in career decision-making, it may cause the problem of career decision-making di culties. Therefore, we take perfectionism as an independent variable, career decisionmaking di culty as a dependent variable, and career adaptability as an intermediary variable as the theoretical model of this study.

Participants and Procedure
In this study, online questionnaires were distributed to a total of 400 senior graduates from three universities in China, one in the eastern region, one in the southwestern region, and one in the central region, which can effectively eliminate the differences brought about by different regions. All questionnaires were informed of the purpose of the questionnaire at the beginning. All the participants were students who voluntarily participated in the questionnaire and received a thank-you gift of 5 yuan after completing the questionnaire. A total of 392 questionnaires were collected (98.00%). Initial analysis of the returned questionnaires excluded both blank questionnaires and questionnaires with signi cant patterns (i.e., 111111) that indicated sham participation. An additional 4 questionnaires were excluded when difference values between two valid test items were larger than 4 according to criteria for valid test items of the EPCD [41]. Overall, 388 questionnaires (97.00%) passed further data analysis.

Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale
The Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale was assessed by the method of Frost et al. (1991) after revision [50]. There were 27 items and 5 dimensions: fear of mistakes, hesitation in actions, parents' expectation, organization, and personal standards. Among them, the organizational dimension measures individual adaptive perfectionism, that is, positive perfectionism in this study. The other four dimensions measure individual non-adaptive perfectionism, that is, negative perfectionism in this study. A ve-point score is used, ranging from 1 to 5, where 1 means very inconsistent and 5 means very consistent. In this study, Cronbach's alpha coe cient of the scale was 0.843. The negative perfectionism and positive perfectionism were 0.851 and 0.835 respectively, which have good reliability and can be used in Chinese college students.

College students' Career Adaptability Scale
College Students' Career Adaptability Scale was assessed by the method of Chen et al. (2020) [51]. There were 35 items and 6 dimensions: career control, career curiosity, career concern, career con dence, career adjustment, and career interpersonal relationship. A ve-point score is used, ranging from 1 to 5, where 1 means very inconsistent and 5 means very consistent. In this study, Cronbach's alpha coe cient of the scale was 0.901 and the 6-dimensional coe cient is 0.742-0.823, which can be used to evaluate the career adaptability of college students.

Career Decision-Making Di culties Scale
Career Decision-making Di culty Scale was assessed by the method of Tien (2005) after revision [52]. There were 35 items and 3 dimensions: lack of preparation, di culty in information exploration, con ict, and contradiction. A ve-point score is used, ranging from 1 to 5, where 1 means very inconsistent and 5 means very consistent. In this study, Cronbach's alpha coe cient of the scale was 0.842 and the 3dimensional coe cient is 0.634-0.775, which can be used to evaluate the career decision-making di culty of college students.

Research Hypothesis
According to the analysis results of the literature review, there is a certain correlation between positive perfectionism, negative perfectionism, career adaptability, and career decision-making di culties. Therefore, this paper proposed the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1
Positive perfectionism of college students is positively correlated with career adaptability and negatively correlated with career decision-making di culties.

Hypothesis 2
Negative perfectionism of college students has a signi cant negative correlation with career adaptability and a signi cant positive correlation with career decision-making di culties.

Hypothesis 3
Positive perfectionism of college students can negatively predict career decision-making di culties, and career adaptability plays an intermediary role.

Hypothesis 4
Negative perfectionism of college students can positively predict career decision-making di culties, and career adaptability plays an intermediary role, see Figure. 1.

Common method deviation test
Common method deviation refers to the arti cial covariation among variables caused by the same data source, measurement environment, project context, and project characteristics. The common method deviation will lead to inaccurate data and misleading conclusions, so it should be controlled. Generally, the common method deviation is controlled by both procedures and statistics.
Procedural control: (l) When the questionnaire is applied, the subjects are asked to answer anonymously, and the guidelines of the questionnaire and the subjects' answers emphasize the anonymity and con dentiality of the research; (2) By choosing subjects to answer in different schools, places and periods, the measurement is separated in time and space; (3) Set a certain number of reverse scores to prevent the subjects from answering carelessly, and try to detect the true level of the subjects as much as possible.
Although the program is controlled to a certain extent, it is still di cult to eliminate the common method deviation. Therefore, this study further uses Harman single factor test to make exploratory factor analysis on all measurement items and nds that there are 26 items with factor characteristic values greater than 1, and the maximum factor explanation variance is 15.540%, less than 40%. Therefore, it can be considered that the common method deviation is well controlled in this study, and there is no common method deviation problem.

Descriptive statistic
In this study, perfectionism, career adaptability, and career decision-making di culties are analyzed utilizing mean, standard deviation, maximum value, and minimum value, among which perfectionism is divided into positive perfectionism and negative perfectionism. As shown in the following Table 1. In terms of perfectionism. The average value of positive perfectionism is signi cantly higher than the median value, which indicates that the level of positive perfectionism of college students is at a high level. The total score of negative perfectionism and the scores of fear of mistakes and parents' expectations are lower than the median, but the scores of personal standards and hesitation in actions are higher than the median. After entering the university, college students have more initiative and autonomy in their study and life and pursue organization and order in doing things. At the same time, due to further separation from parental control and the in uence of parental expectations on college students gradually decreases, which led students to have high self-con dence and will not deny themselves because of a temporary failure. However, college students can't set their own personal standards according to the actual situation. Moreover, due to their lack of ability and the inability to see a longerterm future, they can't predict the mistakes and failures they will face, and they will have doubts when they act.
In terms of career adaptability. The scores of career adaptability in general and all dimensions are higher than the median, which indicates that college students' career adaptability is at a high level. Nowadays, universities no longer only emphasize grades, which makes college students have more extracurricular activities after studying, so as to get on well with classmates and cultivate their own interests and hobbies. In addition, the popularity of the Internet also enables college students to understand the latest information in all aspects faster, which is conducive to enhancing their self-con dence and promoting their good interpersonal relationships, and ultimately improving their career adaptability. However, the score of the career control dimension is low. The reason is that most college students learn books mechanically, and have little or no chance to do social practice related to their own majors. When they need to do something, they will feel at a loss, anxious, and uncontrollable.
In terms of career decision-making di culties. This study found that the average values of career decision-making di culties in general and all dimensions are slightly lower than the median, which indicates that contemporary college students have some degree of career decision-making di culties. Speci c performance can be classi ed into three points: lack of awareness and relevant knowledge of career planning, inability to prepare for career planning in advance, and always think that career choice should be considered by college students who are nearing graduation.

Correlation analysis
Pearson correlation coe cient can well test the correlation between two variables [53]. In this study, the Pearson correlation coe cient was used to test the relationship among positive perfectionism, negative perfectionism, career adaptability, and career decision-making di culties. The speci c results are shown in Table 2 below.  The relationship between the four variables shows a signi cant pairwise correlation. Positive perfectionism is positively correlated with career adaptability (r = 0.182, 0.406; P < 0.01), which was negatively correlated with career decision-making di culties (r=-0.140; P < 0.01). Negative perfectionism is negatively correlated with career adaptability (r=-0.083; P > 0.05), which was positively correlated with career decision-making di culty (r = 0.317; P < 0.01). There is a signi cant negative correlation between career adaptability and career decision-making di culty (r=-0.487; P < 0.01) Besides, the main path coe cients of the regression model show that the standardized regression coe cient of positive perfectionism to career decision-making di culties is -0.171, P < 0.000. The standardized regression coe cient of negative perfectionism to career decision-making di culties is 0.479, P < 0.000. The regression path coe cient differences are extremely signi cant, which shows that positive perfectionism can negatively predict career decision-making di culties, and college students with higher positive perfectionism can reduce the occurrence of career decision-making di culties. Negative perfectionism can positively predict career decision-making di culties, while higher negative perfectionism of college students is not conducive to the smooth production of career decision-making.

Mediating effect analysis
According to Hayes and Scharkow point out that mediation analysis can effectively analyze the in uence of variable X on variable Y, which makes the research progress in statistical methods and obtain more indepth research results [54]. In addition, if the independent variable x has a certain in uence on the dependent variable y through the variable M, then the variable m is the intermediary variable of X and Y, and the speci c mediating effect can be described by the regression equation path diagram in Fig. 3. Furthermore, this study analyzes the main path coe cients of the mediation model of perfectionism, career adaptability, and career decision-making di culties of college students, and the results are shown in the following Table 3. From the above data, it can be seen that the tting index of this model, except for the in uence of positive perfectionism on career decision-making di culties, does not meet the standard, and other tting indexes all meet the standard, so the model ts well. It shows that career adaptability plays an intermediary role in the role of positive perfectionism and negative perfectionism in career decision-making di culties. Speci cally, career adaptability plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between negative perfectionism and career decision-making di culties. It plays a complete intermediary role in the relationship between positive perfectionism and career decision-making di culties, and the research hypothesis holds. Therefore, this study establishes a mediation model, as shown in the following Fig. 4.
Negative perfectionism directly affects the career decision-making level of college students, the higher the score of negative perfectionism of college students, the easier it is to make career decision-making di culties. Negative perfectionism can also in uence career decision-making di culties through career adaptability, if college students have higher negative perfectionism, it will be detrimental to the development of career adaptability, and college students with lower career adaptability are more likely to have career decision-making di culties.
Positive perfectionism does not directly affect career decision-making di culties but exerts in uence on career decision-making di culties completely through career adaptability. College students' higher positive perfectionism is conducive to the development of their career adaptability, and the improvement of career adaptability helps college students make career decisions smoothly, resulting in fewer career decision-making di culties.
After tting the mediation analysis model, it is necessary to decompose the mediation effect. Usually, the contents of decomposition mainly include: (1) the size of mediation effect; (2) The ratio of intermediary effect to total effect, namely ab/ (ab + c'); (3) The ratio of intermediary effect to direct effect, namely ab/c'; (4) Analyze the size of the speci c mediating effect, that is, the total mediating effect through a certain mediating variable.
As shown in Table 4, in the mediation model of negative perfectionism, career adaptability, and career decision-making di culties, the direct effect is 0.334, the mediating effect is 0.099, and the total effect is 0.433. In the mediation model, ab and c' have the same sign and are signi cant, which indicates that the mediation is part of the mediation, and the mediation effect accounts for 22.9% of the total effect. The ratio of mediating effect to total effect ab/(ab + c') 0.229 The ratio of mediating effect to direct effect ab/ c' 0.296 As shown in Table 5, in the mediation model of positive perfectionism, career adaptability, and career decision-making di culties, the direct effect is -0.032, the mediation effect is -0.244, and the total effect is -0.276. In the mediation model, ab and c' have the same sign, but c' is not signi cant, which indicates that the mediation model is complete mediation, and the mediation effect accounts for 88.4% of the total effect. The ratio of mediating effect to total effect ab/(ab + c') 0.884 The ratio of mediating effect to direct effect ab/ c' 7.625 5. Discussion

College students pursue closer perfection
By analyzing the overall situation of positive and negative perfectionism, it is found that the score of positive perfectionism is higher than the median, while the score of negative perfectionism is opposite, which indicates that the level of positive perfectionism is higher than that of negative perfectionism.
Speci cally, rst of all, the measurement of positive perfectionism shows that college students score higher, which shows that college students pay attention to the organization in their daily study and life, have a stronger motivation to pursue success, and can set practical goals for themselves. At the same time, they have positive self-awareness, and their emotional performance is more stable in the face of failure. Secondly, the measurement of negative perfectionism shows that the negative perfectionism of college students is also remarkable, which shows that their character is unstable and they are afraid of failure when they pursue success. In addition, there is a situation of setting unrealistic or even unreachable goals, which can not be attributed reasonably when faced with failure, and then the reason for failure can be attributed to the lack of self-ability. This may also lead to the excessive pursuit of detail and order in the implementation of the plan, and it is easier to hesitate when faced with decision-making.
Finally, it can be seen that college students tend to set higher personal standards and goals for themselves and be strict with themselves. However, due to the lack of persistence in the implementation process, they can only see the current development of things, but not the future development direction of things and the di culties they will face. Because they can't see the danger in the future and won't worry about mistakes, which will lead to hesitation and doubt in the process of doing things.

Career adaptability is unbalanced and the control is poor
The analysis of college students' career adaptability shows that college students score higher in career adaptability. The scores of career concern and career curiosity are high, which shows that college students pay attention to the occupation they are interested in consciously and pay attention to the establishment of the interpersonal relationship after studying. It also helps them to have strong selfcon dence in enter-ing society after graduation, and prepare for tasks and problems in different stages of career development. However, this degree of preparation is not enough to support him to solve his career problems smoothly.
From all dimensions, the development level of college students' career adaptability is unbalanced and there are obvious de ciencies. College students lack autonomy, can't make career decisions independently, and have low career control ability. At the same time, they can't position themselves accurately, and they lack understanding of the environment and curiosity about the profession. This conclusion has also been con rmed that many college students are not interested in their major and cannot accurately understand the relationship between their major and their future occupation [55]. Due to the lack of career planning guidance, college students cannot clearly plan their career development direction and lack their career goals. Therefore, the development level of career adaptability of college students still needs to be improved.

Low career decision-making ability leads to career decision-making di culties
The analysis of college students' career decision-making di culties shows that college students have a moderate degree of career decision-making di culties. In the three dimensions, the scores from low to high are lack of preparation, di culty in information exploration, and information con ict. College students have the highest scores of career decision-making di culties due to information con icts. With the acceleration of information updates, the credibility of public-oriented information is greatly reduced. It is di cult for college students who have not o cially entered society to distinguish between true and false information. In order to prevent being deceived, college students often hesitate to make career decisions. Besides, many college students don't consider work until they graduate, and they have many unreasonable beliefs, such as "staying in a big city" and "going into a big company". These unreasonable ideas mislead their career choices and make them hesitate and miss good opportunities in the decisionmaking process. Finally, important people such as "parents" of college students in daily life will in uence their career choices. These factors will lead to contradictions and con icts in the career decision-making process of college students.

Positive perfectionism and negative perfectionism have opposite effects on career adaptability and career decision-making di culties
This study shows that positive perfectionism is positively correlated with career adaptability and negatively correlated with career decision-making di culties. Negative perfectionism is negatively correlated with career adaptability and positively correlated with career decision-making di culties. There is a signi cant negative correlation between career adaptability and career decision-making di culties. Positive perfectionism has a positive predictive effect on career adaptability, while negative perfectionism has a negative predictive effect on career adaptability, in which career adaptability plays an intermediary role. This basically con rms the initial hypothesis of this study.
First of all, perfectionists want to make career decisions that they think are perfect and satisfy themselves and other important people around them. Among them, negative perfectionists are afraid of failure and pursue unrealistic "perfection" too much. In addition, they will experience anxiety and fear of failure in the process of pursuing, thus aggravating the di culty of career decision-making. Positive perfectionists set practical goals for themselves. They can collect relevant professional information and reasonably analyze the pros and cons while pursuing success, so as to make career decisions smoothly.
Secondly, the behavior motivation of negative perfectionists is to avoid failure, and they will set unrealistic or unreachable goals to avoid blaming their own lack of ability when they fail, so negative perfectionism is not conducive to the cultivation of career adaptability. Active perfectionists' behavior motivation is to pursue success. They will set practical goals and be accompanied by positive selfevaluation. At the same time, they believe that success can happen at any time. Therefore, an active perfectionist personality is conducive to the increase of individual career adaptability.
Finally, individuals with high career adaptability pay more attention to the occupations they are interested in, and can actively collect relevant information about occupations. In the process of work, they can exibly cope with all kinds of unexpected situations and adapt to the change of work more quickly, so can make career decisions more easily.
As it can be seen that career adaptability plays an intermediary role in the relationship between positive perfectionism and negative perfectionism on career decision-making di culties. Speci cally, career adaptability plays a completely mediating role in the relationship between positive perfectionism and career decision-making di culties. Positive perfectionism affects career decision-making di culties completely through career adaptability, that is, college students with higher positive perfectionism can promote the development of their career adaptability. And the increase of career adaptability will reduce the di culty of college students' career decisions. In addition, career adaptability plays a mediating role in the relationship between negative perfectionism and career decision-making di culties, that is, negative perfectionism can directly lead to career decision-making di culties, and can also exert in uence on career decision-making di culties through career adaptability. If college students have higher negative perfectionism, it is not conducive to the development of their own career adaptability, while low career adaptability will make individuals have more career decision-making di culties.

Conclusions
The results of this study show that college students will more or less pursue "perfect", but often with their own preferences to pursue, can not be done based on the rational analysis of things to pursue perfect, resulting in college students doing things that lack of persistence, the future planning is not clear. Such a status quo makes college students in the learning process of their work after graduation employment problems to consider less, not enough comprehensive consideration, and ultimately unable to make career decisions.
At the same time, after descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and intermediary effect analysis of positive perfectionism, negative perfectionism, career adaptability, and career decision-making di culties of college students, it is found that on the whole, college students have higher positive perfectionism and negative perfectionism, and their career adaptability is also at a higher level, but there is a higher degree of career decision-making di culties. From the analysis of mediating effect, positive perfectionism of college students can reduce the di culty of career decision-making, and career adaptability plays a completely mediating role in it. Negative perfectionism of college students will lead to di culties in career decision-making, in which career adaptability plays a mediating role. Ethics Committee of Nanjing Normal University. At the time of enrollment, each participant receives written information about the research project, data protection measures and can withdraw from the study at any time. Prior to any assessment and intervention, participants must provide informed consent via the survey tool.

Consent for publication
Not applicable.

Availability of data and material
The data that support the ndings of this study are available from the corresponding author. Re-strictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under licence for this study. Data are available from the authors with the permission of Nanjing Normal University.    Mediation model.