paper given by Jim Bright and Robert Pryor at the CDAA international careers conference in Cairns, April 26th 2011

1. Are we on task?
Cairns CDAA Research Forum
Robert Pryor & Jim Bright
ACU

2. What is the task?

3. What are the current trends in theory?

4. What are the current trends in research?

5. What are the current trends in practice?

6. What are the future trends?

7. What are the forms of provision of career
development services?

8. Paradigm shifts
• Shift 1: From Prediction To Prediction And Pattern Making
• Shift 2: From Plans To Plans And Planning
• Shift 3: From Narrowing Down To Being Focused On Openness
• Shift 4: From Control To Controlled Flexibility
• Shift 5: From Risk As Failure To Risk As Endeavour
• Shift 6: From Probabilities To Probable Possibilities
• Shift 7: From Goals, Roles And Routines To Meaning, Mattering, And Black
Swans
• Shift 8: From Informing To Informing And Transforming
• Shift 9: From Normative Thinking To Normative And Scalable Thinking
• Shift 10: From Knowing In Advance To Living With Emergence
• Shift 11: From Trust As Control To Trust As Faith
(BRIGHT & PRYOR, 2008 AJCD)

9. Some issues
• Do we need to redefine out task?
• Ongoing challenge to integrate modern and postmodern approaches
• Tendency to oversimplify both perspectives
• Neglect of vocational rehabilitation in theory
• Neglect of self
• Is forecasting an adequate replacement for predicting or do we need to address the future in another way?
• Focus on limitations and failure
• Coming emphasis on “happiness” from positive psychology
• Challenges of web-delivery - how can we deliver postmodern techniques via the web? Usability?
Standards? Access?

10. More detailed information for consideration

11. What is the task?
• Aim of career development counselling – to assist individuals essentially
but not exclusively through work to achieve a life that is:
• meaningful – relates to what matters
• values
• commitments
• satisfying
• fulfils needs and aspirations
• significant
• contributes beyond self
• others
• community
• nation
• world
QUESTION: Is it time to emphasise life over work? If so, what are
implications for theories, models and traiinng of career consellors?

12. What are the forms of provision of career
development services?
• Counselling
• interviewing
• data collecting
• advising / suggesting
• reflecting / affirming
• challenging / confronting
• Co-constructing
QUESTION: Are we counselling enough? Is the emphasis on information
provision?

13. What are the forms of provision of career
development services?
• Labour market information
• job descriptions, education, books
• Action Research
• work visits, shadowing, trials, worker interviews
• Quantitative
• tests
• pencil paper
• computerised
• Qualitative
• genograms
• cards sorts
• story

14. What are the forms of provision of career
development services?
• Internet
• Dedicated Career Planning sites
• e.g. Myfuture, Kuder
• Job boards
• Monster, Seek, Mycareer, Careerone
• Social networking sites
• Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Youtube, Foursquare, Wordpress,
Posterous
• General testing sites
• SHL, Testgrid
• Non-career development specific sites
• Newspapers
• Psychology today
• etc

15. What are the forms of provision of career
development services?
• Hooley, Hutchinson & Watts (2010)
• Community: The internet is an important site for community interaction:
technology has increasingly become a tool to facilitate a wide range of
communication.
• Collectivising knowledge: A feature of many Web 2.0 technologies is
their ability to collectivise and aggregate the opinions of many.
• Individualisation: Users are increasingly able to individualise and tailor
their relationships with online content.
• Recognising time and place: Technologies are now enabling us to
interact with the web in ways that recognise and identify time and place.
This is particularly important to career exploration.

16. Hooley, Hutchinson & Watts (2010)
cont
• Located in the cloud: The way in which both applications and data are
stored and delivered to the end-user is changing and is increasingly
located off-site and with third-party providers.
• Free or almost free: The cost of publication and development has
dropped, enabling a wide variety of resources to be delivered at a much
lower cost than in the past.
• Diverse and integrated: The internet is increasingly integrated into a
range of technologies across our lives. In particular, the convergence
between telephone and web technologies opens up new opportunities
for career learning.
• Games: Computer gaming is gaining increasing penetration across
society. It is important that the potential of both commercially produced
games and bespoke educational games are explored for the purpose of
career learning.

17. Internet Questions
• Information & Guidance (Hooley, Hutchinson & Watts) or Guidance &
Information?
• Quality assurance - self-organising (cf Wikipedia) or need for regulation/
recommended sites?
• Usability = equality - a forgotten element of web-delivery (Bright, 2010)

18. What are the forms of provision of career
development services?
• Career development
• Vocational rehabilitation
• Organisational career development
• Life coaching

19. What are the career development services delivery
methods?
•Counselling centre triage (Lenz, Reardon etc)
•Computerised / online
•Face to face
•Career education
•Information evenings
•Work experience
•Telephone / message / email
•Printed material

20. What are the current trends in theory?
• Away from Super’s stages, roles and theatres
• Ongoing but limited focus on matching – PE fit
• Rise of constructivism
• Developing into life designing
• Systems theories – STF and CTC
• Neglect of “self”
• Failure of convergence and calls for integration
• Neglect of Roe’s approach – developmental issues
• Krumboltz – social learning - planned happenstance
• Decline of interest in Gottfredson
• Re-visiting Organisational and Management Perspectives

21. What are the current trends in research?
•still dominated in publication by positivist tradition
•test development, validation
•narrative research methods appearing
•insufficient emphasis on case studies
•beyond illustration
•theory development
•diverse groups – cultural, subcultural
•retirement decision-making

22. What are the current trends in practice?
• testing
• from content to process
• service evaluation
• increase of qualitative techniques
• narrative
• metaphor
• card sorts
• social justice/equity
• cross-cultural issues
• change – to encourage clients to love change as much as they love stability
• BUT TO WHAT DEGREE ARE ALL BUT THE FIRST HAPPENING? HOW CAN
WE TELL?

23. What are the future trends?
•new Century work realities
•speed of communication
•speed and extent of change
•need for lifelong learning
•globalisation
•contracted nature of work
•rapidity of technological innovation and its adoption
•reshaping of organisations
•longevity & retirement

24. Future Trends
• Change
• Extensive
• Inevitable
• unpredictable
• Uncertainty
• Unplanned changes
• Taleb
• outliers
• extreme impact
• post hoc explanation

25. Paradigm shifts
• Shift 1: From Prediction To Prediction And Pattern Making
• Shift 2: From Plans To Plans And Planning
• Shift 3: From Narrowing Down To Being Focused On Openness
• Shift 4: From Control To Controlled Flexibility
• Shift 5: From Risk As Failure To Risk As Endeavour
• Shift 6: From Probabilities To Probable Possibilities
• Shift 7: From Goals, Roles And Routines To Meaning, Mattering, And Black
Swans
• Shift 8: From Informing To Informing And Transforming
• Shift 9: From Normative Thinking To Normative And Scalable Thinking
• Shift 10: From Knowing In Advance To Living With Emergence
• Shift 11: From Trust As Control To Trust As Faith