Career Shocks

There seems to be quite a lot of interest about the whole idea of career shocks in the literature at the moment, so I thought I would try and unpick it to provide a summary. 

What is a career shock?

A career shock happens when an unexpected external event makes you start to question your own career. A career shock can be defined as ‘a disruptive and extraordinary event that is, at least to some degree, caused by factors outside the focal individual’s control and that triggers a deliberate thought process concerning one’s career’ (Akkermans, Seibert, & Mol 2018, p.4). From a career-theory perspective, a career shock is a good example of the interplay between agency and structure – the shock is external (that’s the ‘structure’ bit) but the response is internal (which is where ‘agency’ comes in).

What kinds of shocks are there?

Career shocks can come from all angles. They can personal or interpersonal, within the organisation or outside it. Examples include of the death of a parent, getting a promotion, not getting a promotion, relocating because of a spouse’s job, having children, illness, an economic crash, a pandemic, being made redundant, an earthquake, or unexpected exam results. Career shocks can be negative, such as losing one’s job or a close relative passing away, or positive, such as receiving an unexpected promotion or receiving an award.

What is the impact of a career shock?

Career shocks can lead to both positive and negative changes. Most research suggest that shock valence (ie the emotions you feel about the shock itself) is related to career outcomes (Akkermans et al., 2018), so positive career shocks lead to positive career outcomes and negative shocks to negative outcomes. Kraimer et al. (2019) found that positive career shocks (e.g., receiving a research reward), were related to higher levels of career satisfaction and work engagement among academics, and Blokker et al. (2019) showed that negative shocks undermine the relationship between career competencies and perceptions of external employability in young professionals. Negative career shocks have also been shown to have a detrimental impact on career optimism and job security (Hofer, Spurk & Hirshi, 2020). But this is not always the case and some studies show that negative shocks can lead to positive career outcomes, in particular for those who weren’t all that happy in their jobs in the first place, but who needed an external push to motivate them to take action. For example, Rummel et al. (2019) demonstrated that negative shocks (e.g., being passed over for an anticipated promotion), can lead to longer term positive outcomes such as starting a successful business. And even positive shocks do not invariably lead to positive outcomes – Korotov (2020) showed that positive shocks can cause ambivalent reactions.

Why does a career shock have an impact?

The career shock can have an impact on the choices an individual makes (eg Nair & Chatterjee, 2020, Rummel et al., 2019), their psychological resources including their levels of optimism (Hofer et al., 2020) or sense of agency or their levels of person-job fit through an impact on either demands or resources (Pak et al., 2020). The jarring impact of the shock can also trigger some in-depth reflection about their career path.

Not all shocks are created equal: the bigger the shock, the more destabilising properties it has.

An individual’s pre-existing feelings about work seems to influence the kind of reaction that they had to the shock: People who were satisfied at work pre-shock are more likely to be prompted to do some rational, conscious critical reflection about their careers and their next steps. Those who were dissatisfied pre-shock were more likely to fling themselves spontaneously into action after the shock. For people who felt neutral about their jobs, a career shock can make them realise that they weren’t happy – as the literature says, the shock can surface latent disquiet.

Career shocks and Covid-19

COVID-19 has of course caused a range of different kinds of career shock – both positive and negative. Some people are working harder than ever, some people have lost their jobs, some people can only work from home, and some people have to reinvent how they work (Kniffin et al., 2020). For many the pandemic has given them the space to reflect on their careers, and perhaps to re-evaluate their priorities and values.

How to help following a career shock:

The literature seems to offer a number of suggestions for working with career shocks. First there are some suggestions for things that people can do to shock-proof their careers – traits or skills they can develop which will help them to cope if they do face a shock:

• ·       Good existing levels of psychological resources (social capital, human capital, identity and resilience) can help people to cope better when facing unexpected events.

·       High levels of career adaptability make it more likely that people experiencing career shocks (even negative ones) will end up thriving in their careers (Mansur & Felix, 2020)

• ·       A protean career orientation – one that is self-directed and values driven has been shown to help people to cope when external events surprise them.  

 Then there are suggestions for coaches working with career-shocked clients:

• ·       A career shock often ends up being about a person’s values, and writing sessions can be a great way to help people to identify and articulate what matters to them.
• ·       Time to think. The evidence is clear that taking a bit of time out to reflect on what has happened, on your career journey so far and on your hopes for the future can
• ·       Social support - both a significant other, and a social circle both help with the process of critical reflection (Wordsworth et al., 2021)
• ·       Identity work is what is needed to help people to capitalise on the disruption of the career shock. A clearly articulated continuous identity is particularly important as a way to maintain a sense of a coherent self whilst coping with a transition – a strong sense of identity can help people to see a continuous thread between what they used to do and what they are having to do now.
• ·       Developing career competencies can enable individuals to better capitalize on positive career shocks (Blokker et al., 2019).

And finally, ideas for organisations, to help ensure that their career-shocked employees stay productive and engaged:

• ·       Mentoring can help people to focus on possible future selves
• ·       Organisations who allow or encourage job crafting can help people adjust their work to be more aligned with their identities
• ·       Organisation or supervisor can help them to a better P-O fit (Pak et al., 2020)
• ·       Job embeddedness can buffer the effect of negative shocks on turnover, so keeping your teams close-knit can help (Burton et al., 2010)

 

Further Reading

Akkermans, J., S. E. Seibert, and S. T. Mol. 2018. “Tales of the Unexpected: Integrating Career Shocks in the Contemporary Careers Literature.” SA Journal of Industrial Psychology 44 (1): 1–10. doi:10.4102/sajip.v44i0.1503

Akkermans, J., Seibert, S. E., & Mol, S. T. (2018). Tales of the unexpected: Integrating career shocks in the contemporary careers literature. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 44(1), 1-10.

Akkermans, J., Richardson, J., & Kraimer, M. (2020). The Covid-19 crisis as a career shock: Implications for careers and vocational behavior. Journal of Vocational Behavior https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001879120300592

Ghosh, R. (2021). Protean career orientation and career shock due to the pandemic: HRD’s role in supporting intersectional identity work. Human Resource Development International, 1-3.

Hite, L. M., & McDonald, K. S. (2020). Careers after COVID-19: challenges and changes. Human Resource Development International, 23(4), 427-437.

Hofer, A., Spurk, D., & Hirschi, A. (2020). When and why do negative organization-related career shocks impair career optimism? A conditional indirect effect model. Career development international.

Korotov, K. (2021). Executives and career shocks: observations from coaching practice. Career Development International.

Mansur, J., & Felix, B. (2020). On lemons and lemonade: the effect of positive and negative career shocks on thriving. Career Development International.

McKenna, S. (2021). Career shock: the profound effect of COVID-19 on four Australian middle managers. LSE Business Review.

Pak, K., Kooij, D., De Lange, A. H., Meyers, M. C., & van Veldhoven, M. (2020). Unravelling the process between career shock and career (un) sustainability: exploring the role of perceived human resource management. Career Development International.

Rummel, S., Akkermans, J., Blokker, R., & Van Gelderen, M. (2019). Shocks and entrepreneurship: a study of career shocks among newly graduated entrepreneurs. Career Development International.

Wild, B. (2021). Covid-19 as a career shock and its influence on career development for nurses in the Netherlands.

Wordsworth, R., & Nilakant, V. (2021). Unexpected change: Career transitions following a significant extra-organizational shock. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 127, 103555.