Credibility, confidence and compassion: how career theories can boost our practice and our profession

I have spent a lot of the last few years thinking about career development theories – the ones that try to explain how and why people make their career choices, and how careers develop. I find them fascinating but they are not without their flaws: there are too many, they aren’t generally very clearly explained and it’s hard to know how to use them in practice. I have seen career theories taught very well in courses, and have seen lots of accessible, clearly written guides to the key theories. But despite this, most of the career practitioners I speak to – both those who are very experienced, and those fresh from their studies - generally say that they don’t really use these theories; they would like to, but just don’t quite know how to.

I thought I would see if I could find some positive stories – from practitioners who do use theories in their work and who find them beneficial so I interviewed 30 theoretically-minded career practitioners. Their stories bowled me over. Their knowledge of theories was brilliant, they applied the theories in their practice skilfully and expertly and they all had some great examples of using the theories in a wide range of different contexts. They were very impressive.

Why use theories?

The practitioners identified three key reasons for using theories.

1.     Theories lead to deeper understanding

Most commonly, the practitioners found that using theories helped them to understand their clients more deeply and more quickly. One of the participants gave a good example of this, explaining that when she was a client who was interested in law:

‘rather than just accepting that a client wants to be a lawyer, you think about where the idea came from (opportunity structures), whether they would fit in (trait and factor), how it suits their life roles (LifeSpan LifeSpace) how it fits with their identity (identity theory).’

The theories can have the same impact on the clients themselves and the practitioners spoke about how explaining a one idea from a theory can help the clients to see themselves more clearly.

2.     Theories lead to greater confidence

The practitioners in this study talked about theories as a way to boost their credibility and confidence. Their understanding of the theoretical basis for their work made them feel more professionally credible, and they used their knowledge of theories to explain their work to stakeholders, often saying that theories proved to others that ‘it’s not easy to become a careers adviser’.

For clients, the confidence came from the way that the theories can normalise or validate their own choices. Knowing that their experiences are the subject of a theory seemed to make clients feel less isolated and less unsure of their own decisions.

3.     Theories lead to better professional practice

The practitioners used the theories to guide their conversations perhaps to develop a ‘working hypothesis’ about what is going on with a client, which could give them ideas about what to do next: ‘what questions to ask, what direction to take the conversation and some ideas for solving the problems’. Some used theories to reflect on their practice and found that this made them more self-compassionate, making them feel better about ‘the small steps and the small progress’.

Learning about theories

The practitioners were positive about how the theories were taught on their career courses, effusive about the way their course tutors made the theories come alive for them. They had also kept up to date with new ideas and theories in the field, but found this a bit more tricky and generally would welcome more theory-related CPD. Interestingly, although they felt that their career courses taught the theories really well, they reported that there was a gap in teaching how to use the theories in their practice: they left their courses understanding the theories, but not able to integrate them into their practice.

Conclusion

Our jobs are not easy and anything that we can do to make us more efficient, more effective and more credible is always welcome. I said at the start that I am a theory fan, but the practitioners in this study took this to a whole new level. I was left quite convinced that more of a focus on career development theories could make a real difference to our practice, to our clients and to the standing of our profession. So watch this space! I am working on developing some resources - some theory cards, a collection of case studies and perhaps a some further training. And do let me know if you yourself are a theory-enthusiast – I’d love to collect some more stories.

Career decisions in the real world

Over the years scholars have produced a lot of ideas to help our clients make better career decisions. Their decision-making models are based on erudite decision analysis theory, and are highly cited and well-regarded. 

But they don't work. 

Careers advisers don't use them, and students don't like them, and so young people are often left on their own to work out the actual nuts and bolts of making a choice.

And yet they manage. Every year in the UK, around 600,000 graduates leave university and almost all of them find their way to some kind of next step. Clearly, they work out their own process, and develop their own career decision-making models. So how do they manage it? And is there anything we can learn from them?

Last summer I spoke to 40 recent graduates all from the UK, all currently working. I asked them to think back to before they had any career ideas and to talk me through how they went from 'I have no idea what I want to do' to 'I have a job'. There were some common threads running through their stories, and on the back of them I developed this model - a model of real-world career decision-making. 

The stages in this model are, to some degree, familiar. The idea of having an idea, exploring it in depth and making a choice are well-worn. But there are some key differences between the stages in this model and more traditional advice. 

1). Students pick career ideas one at a time. They don't (as traditional models advise) identify a shortlist and then explore them all to identify the best one. Instead they pick one job idea, explore that and decide whether it's a yes or a no. If it's a no, they go back and pick another. 

Career choices are incredibly complex and one thing that causes decision-making paralysis is cognitive overload - too much to think about at once. Taking one job idea at a time seems like an eminently sensible idea to keep the process manageable. 

2). Self-awareness happens in the context of a particular job idea and not in isolation: students use a job idea to help develop self-awareness, rather than using self-awareness to generate a job idea. The students did not start the process by thinking about themselves, their strengths, values and requirements. Instead they started with a job idea and then reflected on themselves in terms of that one idea. They might, for example, pick the idea of nursing, then ask themselves 'What would I like about nursing? What would I not like? What would I be good at? What would I struggle with?'. 

Again, this makes perfect sense. We all know that becoming self-aware is a lifetime endeavour, and for these young people with their limited life and work experience, answering abstract questions about their strengths and values is near impossible. Placing these same questions within a tangible context - one that they can imagine or envisage makes it far easier. 

3) Students explore occupational ideas by applying for a job. Traditional models suggest that decision makers should explore, make a choice and then apply; but these graduates often explored their job idea through applying, and then made a choice. 

This makes some sense, although has its down sides. The interview process is a great way to get to talk to people working in the field, and can really help students to imagine themselves in that position. But the danger is that students use the application process as a way to avoid having to make a choice - they leave the 'choice' in the hands of the employer, seeing a job offer as a sign that the job is right for them, or perhaps feeling that they had invested so much in the application process, that they couldn't bear all their efforts to be in vain. 

This feels like an approach that could arguably be usefully encouraged, as long as the students are supported to resist the temptation just to accept their first offer. 

4) Students' decisions are mostly made through chance and instinct. They generated ideas on the back of TV programmes, they explored in-depth by talking to people they came across, and they made choices on the basis of one inspirational conversation. But where chance didn't yield a useful outcome, they became rational planners, using pros and cons lists to make choices, and attending careers events to generate ideas. 

The decision-making literature has warmed in recent years to the idea of a 'dual-processing model' in which people combine instinct and chance with some rational planning. Using instinct and chance feels like a very sensible way for students to start the process - after all there are more that 25,000 occupations in the UK, and they need some way to narrow it down. But what was noticeable in this model was that students preferred to leave it to chance - they only resorted to rational planning and research when chance and instinct failed them. Perhaps students could benefit from being encouraged to think critically about their chance encounters and instinctive decisions to make sure they don't sleepwalk into a poor choice. 

5) Graduates are always keeping their options open. They may have made a choice, and settled on a job, but for may of them, it didn't feel like a conclusion. This was what they were going to do whilst they carried on looking. 

This feels like a very reassuring message to give students. Career anxiety is widespread in young people, and one of their main fears is that they will make the wrong choice. This study shows that there is no wrong choice. Even if they end up doing something terrible, somewhere they hate, it doesn't matter. They will learn something, earn some money and be in a position to make a better choice next time round. 

I think the model the students have come up with is probably better than the traditional decision-making models. It certainly seems easier to relate to. I can see that it could be hugely reassuring to students to understand this process - perhaps learning about it in their first years. They might find it both comforting and practically useful.

I have written this up as an academic research paper which is under-going peer review at the moment. I'll post the link to the paper once it is accepted. But in the meantime, do get in touch if you want any further details!