1. IAEVG Conference 2-4 October 2018
Qualitative approaches to Career Counselling
Themes and Methods

2. Perceptions of career – and counselling
Examples:
Super: Careers unfold, through the individuals’ engagement in different activities and roles (education, work and other life-roles)
Savickas: Careers are constructed (though language). Individuals need help to de-/reconstruct a coherent life-/career story
SCCT: Careers are influenced by a complex interplay between many different factors connected to the individual, the environment and behavior

3. Life-span and transitions
Transitions are multidimensional and complex (OECD) and can be affected by many different and interrelated factors

4. 1. Transitions and choice incidents - Your career story
Draw your life-bow on a piece of paper. Make small marks on the bow illustrating various phases – e.g. places you have been, things you have done and significant events:
Education, work, family, leisure
Choose one of the transitions you have encountered and think about what may have influenced the choices you made:
Individual factors – e.g. changing life-roles, personal life- tasks, priorities, interests and values
Contextual factors – e.g. possibilities and barriers and/or other peoples expectations/demands

5. Career counselling - What? Why? How?
The content of choices. What influences career choices - what do we talk about and why?
The process of choosing. How do counsellors facilitate choices? How do we organize career counselling and what methods do we use?
The wise choice of vocation – looking back:
A: Self-knowledge – understanding your self, your interests, abilities, resources and barriers
B: Occupational knowledge – knowing about different types of jobs and requirements connected hereto
C: True reasoning – the ability to reason between the relationship between A & B (Parsons, 1909)

6. Themes and phases in career counselling
Themes – collected from different career theories
Factors assumed to influence career choices – the theoretical ‘building blocks’
The ‘content’ of career counselling
Phases – presented in various theories
How counselling flow is described - sequences
4 phases – across different career theories
Career assessment
Career exploration
Specification of career choices
Implementation of career choices

7. Career assessment – exploring counselling needs
Transitions and choice incidents
Inner motivated or caused by external events. Results in changes in life-structure (Super) – ‘a gap’ (CIP)
Life-span, roles and individual tasks
Role interactions and/or priorities (Super/Savickas)
Life-space and context
Physical, mental and social world (Lewin/Kelly)
Possibility structures (SCCT)/Social niche (Gottfredson)
Readiness to make career choices - complexity
Resources to handle career related tasks – career maturity/adaptability (Super, Savickas)

8. Life-space and context
The ‘social world’ – the ‘field’ (Bourdieu/Lewin)
Individual occupy different spaces on the social arena – leads to unequal access to material, social and cultural resources
The interplay between objective and subjective factors affects motivation, aspirations and goals
The Life-space (Super)
The contextual dimension of individuals life-story – possibility structures
The changing constellation of social and individual roles (life-structure) which frames career development and choices

9. Life-space in different Life- phases
Changing life-structure
Values and priorities
Socio-economic factors
Possibilities and barriers
Personal development tasks
Inner motivated or demands from others

10. 2. Career assessment
Choose a section of your life-bow (like a pie-piece) and explore your life-space - at the given time
Write keywords on the selected piece describing the important roles and activities you were engaged in
Think about how different factors may have influenced your performance and choices e.g.:
Individual factors connected to different life-roles (e.g. family responsibilities, leisure activities)
Contextual factors (e.g. economy, housing, support)
Discuss with the person sitting next to you:
How can ‘exploring life-space’ contribute to the assessment of counselling needs?

11. Career exploration -widening the perspective
The individuals perception of occupations
Socialization processes, environmental influences and prior learning (Gottfredson, Krumboltz/SCCT)
Stereotypical perceptions of jobs and their ‘performers’ (Gottfredson)
The individuals understanding of herself
Self-concepts, self-efficacy (Super/SCCT)
Generalized/stereotypical self-observations (Gottfredson/Krumboltz)
The individuals perception of the future
Possible pathways to different types of careers
Education and training – possibilities, limitations

12. 3. Widening the perspective - perceptions of jobs and ‘self’
In pairs (counsellor and counselee)
Ask the counselee to imagine that she’s being offered the jobs written on the cards and then – spontaneously - place them in one of the 3 piles:
A ‘NO pile’ – Jobs she would not consider
A ‘YES pile’ – Jobs she would consider
A ‘IN DOUBT pile’ – Jobs she doesn’t know if she would consider
Cards from all 3 piles can be used to explore possible
connections between different career choice variables!

13. Reasons for not considering a job
Choose some of the cards from the NO-pile and let the counselee describe how she perceive these. Ask open questions to explore the counselees:
Perception of the jobs, e.g.:
which characteristics does she attribute to the jobs
how may these be in conflict with her self-concepts, self-efficacy, interests, aspirations or expectations for the future
Motives for not considering a particular job, e.g.:
types of activities/work, working hours or job requirements
career opportunities, status, salary…
Summarize from the counselees stories, what she wants to
avoid, e.g.:
Types of jobs/activities that involves/requires……

14. Reasons for considering a job
Choose some of the cards from the YES- pile and explore how the counselee perceive these. Ask open questions to explore:
Values
Which values does the counselee attribute to the different jobs (e.g. helping others, make a difference)
The connection between values and job-attributes (e.g. balance life/work, status/salary, career options)
Interests
Types of activities that the counselee attribute to the jobs
The connection between these and her interests (e.g. creativity, mathematic, nature, people ..)
Summarize from the counselees stories what could cause her consider a career option, e.g.:
Jobs/activities that provides an opportunity to ……...?

15. Card sorts in career exploration
Using card sort exercises as a first step in career exploration
Crystallizing interests and values – likes and dislikes
Using values and interest to explore career options, e.g. jobs that …
has to do with people, mathematics, creativity
Using the counselees stories to help her specify a career choice, e.g.:
Jobs where she can avoid ….
Jobs which offers an opportunity to become engaged in a specific type of activities

16. Specification of career choices – exploring incentives, options and goals
Outcome- expectations and motivation
What does the counselee want to achieve, through her career choice (SCCT)
Perceptions of the future and personal goals
The kind of life that the counselee wants to live (Super)
The counselees intentions and desires (SCCT)
Prioritizing and balancing life-roles
Life-themes and personal projects (Super, Savickas)
Specifying a career choice
Connect the past, the present and the future (Super)

17. The life-career story - connect the past, the present and the future
Patterns in life-themes -work/life/leisure/family
Important activities
Values, interests and resources
Past
Current life-space
Possibilities and barriers
Life-structure and roles
Thoughts, emotions, actions
Present
Personal goals
Outcome expectations
Life-role expectations
Connection between values, interests and priorities
What would it take?
Future

18. Implementation of career choices - understanding perseverance
The type of choice – background
Direct or indirect choice pressure – failed to crystallize and/or specify career options (Super/CIP)
Faulty expectations – a chosen activity was not as expected (SCCT)
Changes in life-structure
New roles and tasks- changed engagement (Super)
Motivation and perseverance
Lack of self-efficacy/personal goals
Stops believing that ones efforts can lead to a desired goal (SCCT)