Coherent Career Practice: The Underpinnings of Successful Transitions

1. Coherent Career Practice: The Underpinnings of Successful Transitions Dave Redekopp Alberta Career Development Conference May, 2014

2. Career Concerns • Clients fall through cracks even when good services are provided • Many, many people will never see a career practitioner • The world is becoming extremely complex • We need to communicate fundamental career concerns to “non-career” helpers

3. Primary Aims • Help clients target the real issues (not just presenting problem) they need to deal with • Implement strategies to help clients with the “real issue” • Most importantly, develop • Career resourcefulness • Career capacity • Career self-sufficiency

4. Coherent Career Practice • What we’re hoping for is a framework that: • Accounts for and connects all career services and interventions • Allows for a systematic way of looking at career issues that “sticks together” or coheres the components • Helps identify the source of a client’s, employee’s, student’s, etc. difficulties

5. Coherent Career Living • Ultimately, we’re hoping that a coherent career practice will lead to coherent career living • Clients, students, etc. will become resourceful enough to solve their own problems in most cases

6. Core Elements of Career Resourcefulness • Career Literacy • Career Gumption • Career Context • Career Integrity

7. Career Literacy • A progressively acquired set of skills, knowledge and attitudes that are related to the acquisition, understanding and application of information needed to manage one’s own career development

8. A Comment on Literacy • Literacy gives you the tools to read. • It does not guarantee that you will like the book you are reading. • It does not guarantee that the book you want will be available. • It does not guarantee that you will know the “right” book to choose next. • All readers understand that there is no “perfect” or “right” book.

9. Developing Career Literacy • Directly via instruction (counselling, programs, etc.) • Incidentally (vicarious learning) • Reflectively (thinking about what may be useful) • Experientially (learning from mistakes, etc.)

10. Poor Career Literacy • Information problems • Result of lack of info or misinformation (e.g., incorrect beliefs about WCB) • Skill problems • Result of lack of practice; lack of feedback on practice • Attitude problems • Result of lack of will; self-perceptions of skill; mistaken beliefs

11. Levels of Literacy • In a situation of significant transition (e.g., RTW in a new occupation), the demand for career literacy increases • In an increasingly complex work world, career literacy requirements are increasing accordingly

12. Career Gumption • The energy, momentum, motivation or desire to engage in career development • Manifested in being proactive, taking initiative and making change • Rooted in optimism (the future will be better), hope (I’ll be fine even if the future isn’t better) and self-assurance (I can handle whatever comes up)

13. Developing Career Gumption • Directly via instruction (counselling, programs, etc.) • Incidentally (vicarious learning) • Reflectively (thinking about what may be useful) • Experientially (learning from mistakes, etc.) • This is the same list as for career literacy, but the focus is different

14. Career Gumption Triggers • Dissatisfaction (“I’m not happy so I should do something about it”) • Anticipation (“I’m happy now but I won’t be if I keep doing what I’m doing forever or if the world changes on me.”) • Injury (“I can’t do what I’ve been doing. I better adjust!”) • These don’t cause gumption. Triggers could also be responded to with: • Learned helplessness • Denial/rationalization • Perseveration (working harder at old strategies)

15. Poor Career Gumption • Usually rooted in fear, including fear of: • The unknown (or little known) • Failure • Success • Being unique • Being different

16. Career Context • The relationships between • How one perceives the larger world (The world as I see it), • How one perceives one’s immediate situation (“My world” – the world that I see available to me), and • How one may be affected by the immediate and larger world, even without realizing it

17. Good Career Context Is… • Creative – perceptions aren’t rigid • e.g., not tied to existing occupational titles • Comprehensive and comprehensible • some middle ground between seeing lots of opportunities & not being overwhelmed • Realistic in the short-term (my world) and imaginative in the long-term (the world)

18. Career Integrity • A meaningful balance between personal, social, economic and community factors • Congruence between one’s identity, the roles one plays, and how one plays those roles • A balance between career identity and career context • Involves making choices

19. Career Integrity (cont’d) • Career Integrity enables one to fit into a social world in a way that satisfies both one’s aspirations and one’s conscience (doing what feels right and is right)

20. Poor Career Integrity Occurs When… • Choices are made for superficial reasons (e.g., money) rather than identity reasons • One is choosing between competing but desirable values • Choices are not available • Through lack of opportunity or coercion • Integrity is achieved only accidentally

21. General Sequence • Integrity fuels gumption • Gumption mobilizes literacy • Literacy gives the tools to understand context • Context further clarifies and informs integrity

22. Career Integrity Career Context Career Gumption Career Literacy

23. Career Integration – Tuning the Banjo • Career Integration is the process of assembling and re-assembling the 4 elements so that they “fit” together • Each element affects the other; when one element changes, the others change • Experience changes each element; each day brings subtle and not-so-subtle changes to each element