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.
