Keynote by Lisbeth Højdal at an NVL conference on CMS, November 2017

1. Career Management Skills
What-Why-How?
NVL 1017
Competence development as a goal for
career guidance - Critical perspectives

2. Political background and rationale
• The gap between how career guidance services are
delivered and the goals of public policy is wide .….
policies to encourage the development of citizens’
employability requires ..
› citizens to have the skills to manage their own
education and employment
› all citizens to have access to high quality information
and advice about education, training
• A Life-long guidance system need a number of
features, e.g.:
› Programs to develop people’s career-management
skills ..[and] access to individual guidance .. for those
who need such help… (OECD/EU, 2004)

3. Policy goals and objectives
• Career guidance ..can help to ensure that individuals’
decisions are based on self-assessments and labor
market information, thus reducing market failures
› encouraging all individuals … to engage in career
planning … enabling them to respond more flexibly to
the opportunities offered by a dynamic labor market.
(Worldbank, 2004)
• Individualizing career problems?
› People are told to be in control of his or her destiny,
answer to market forces and be infinitely adaptable .. but
› Most [workers] .. never had control over building a career,
so there should be no romanticising some golden age.
(Sennett,1998/Standing p. 41/63)

4. From guiding to advising
- The rebirth of the matching philosophy
• Personal guidance must be changed from being mainly
informative to become more advising – from guidance
about education, to guidance to education
(Socialdemokraterne, 2009)
• It is crucial that schools provide the students with the
right guidance and right skills in relation to choosing
and subsequently completing the youth education they
are most suitable for …... (Folkeskoleforliget, 2013)
• It's a good investment if you can lead the youngsters to
a youth education that they can complete (Andersen, AE 2016)

5. To match and predict
• We can only to a limited degree predict individuals
educational pathways
› If we try anyway, there is a danger of stigmatization
and self-fulfilling prophecies (Jensen & Pedersen, 2016)
› The ‘low grade students’ in compulsory schools do not
necessarily continue to be that (AE, 2015)
• Neither the fit between person and environment nor
anticipatory consequential thinking can predict
academic performance and perseverance
› It is not experience or skills per se ... that shapes
academic performance and career choices
(Bandura, 2000 p. 426, 423)

6. To make the ‘right’ choice
• The dominant political discourse:
› Information + CMS= good choices
• In a political constructed reality…
› youngsters are being asked to make themselves
useable on the labor market …. and
› the result of guidance can be, that youngsters lower
their ambitions - thus maintaining social injustices
(Colley, 2004)
• Many youngster may seem to be decided, without
actually being - because they …
› want to avoid conflicts or discomfort (CIP, Gottfredson et al.)
› have been subjects to ‘choice pressure’ (Super, SCCT et al.)

7. Career Management – a guidance
objective?
• Career management skills as a recipe for coping with
career problems
› Collective guidance contributes to the development of
career competences as a basis ..for making career
choices in a life-span (UU DK, 2016)
• If I cannot control my career it is because I don’t have
sufficient competences
› If people are led to believe that their difficulties stem
from internal but changeable factors, the net result
may be self-blame rather than heigtened motivation.
(Bandura, 2000)

8. What competences?
• DOTS: Developed for primary school teachers (Law, 2000)
› Decision learning, Opportunity awareness, Transition
learning and Self awareness …
› Self awareness: what kind of personality do I take
with me.. qualifications, abilities, aptitudes,
limitations, needs, aspirations.. (Law & Watts, 2003)
• Self-knowledge
› understanding of yourself, your aptitudes, abilities,
interests, resources, limitations (Parsons, 1909)
• Career learning competences – a Danish variant
› Understanding of your strengths, interests and
competences, and where they can be used ...
(CEFU, 2016)

9. Have we been there before?
• The wise choice – everybody is happy! (Parsons, 1909)
› Self knowledge
› Occupational knowledge
› True reasoning (Decision making skills?)
• Leading youngster the ‘right way’ (psycho-physical
institutes)
› The objective was: ‘to prevent that youngsters made
mistakes when they were choosing their life-position’
(Gregersen, 1934)
• But .. transitions and choice incidents ...
› varies as a result of individuals unique and changing
life-structure and career concerns (Super, SCCT et al)

10. Guidance and Career learning
• Guidance as education:
› We need to change perspective from choices to learning
(Poulsen et al., 2016/Udsyn i udskolingen)
• Guidance and education (Law, 1999, 2003)
› New-DOTS..thinking needs both careers guidance and
careers education. In careers education, the learner is a
student in a classroom..
› New-DOTS is a rationale for curriculum ... will help the
guidance process; but it stands independently of that
function
• Careers work – unifying the aims of ..
› careers education and careers guidance as enabling
choice

11. Guidance as teaching ?
• Careers Education facilitates learning
› Others have defined the content. Pre-determined
leaning goals (DOTS/CMS-programs)
› Career learning is the process that enables the
acquisition of these competences (CEFU, 2016)
• Career guidance facilitates choices
› Addresses the individuals unique career concerns
› No pre-determined (learning) goals
› Stimulates reflections - e.g. about: earlier learning
experiences, values, life-roles, possibility structures
› Can contribute to continued interest- and career
development (Super et al.)

12. Questions to ask – and discuss..
• If the objective of guidance is to develop a persons
skills and competences – what’s the difference
between career guidance and careers education?
• If competence development is the objective of
guidance – why not give our job to the teachers?

13. References
• Andersen, Lars/DI m.fl. (2016): Kortlægning af unges uddannelsesveje
• Bandura, Albert (2000): Self-efficacy. The Exercise of Control
• CEFU (2016): Karrierelæring i gymnasiet. De vidste ikke hvad de ville
• Colley, Helen (2004): Do we choose careers or do careers choose us?
• Gregersen, Gunnar (1934): De unges fremtid
• Law, Bill (1999): Career-learning space: new-DOTS thinking for careers education
• Law, Bill (2000): New DOTS: Career Learning for the Contemporary World
• Law, Bill & Watts. A.G. (2003): The DOTS analysis - original version
• OECD (2000): From Initial Education to working lives. Making trasisions work
• OECD/EU (2004): Uddannelses-og erhvervsvejledning. En håndbog for beslutningstagere
• Rigsrevisionen (2012): Beretning til Statsrevisorerne om indsatsen for 95 %-målsætningen på
ungdomsuddannelserne
• Poulsen, Bo m.fl. (2016): Udsyn i udskolingen
• Socialdemokraternes uddannelseskomission (2009): 13 års uddannelse til alle
• Standing, Guy (2014: The Precariat. The New Dangerous Class
• UU Danmark (2016): Udvikling af kollektiv vejledning. Inspirationshæfte til UU- vejledere m.fl
• Worldbank (2004): PUBLIC POLICIES FOR CAREER DEVELOPMENT Case Studies And Emerging
Issues For Designing Career Information And Guidance Systems In Developing And Transition
Economies