In my career planning meetings with students I use a set of questions to guide our discussion. It’s important to adapt the questions to the discussion and to listen to the story that comes from the answers. Restating the story to the student at the end and asking for their thoughts on it is also very helpful.
It’s about supporting a client’s process of meaning making, helping them to understand their career path.
Some key resources in this are:
- Narrative career counselling: Theory and exemplars of practice by McIlveen & Patton https://doi.org/10.1080/00050060701405592
- Life Design: A Paradigm for Career Intervention in the 21st Century by Savickas https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1556-6676.2012.00002.x
- Story telling: crafting identities by McMahon & Watson https://doi.org/10.1080/03069885.2013.789824
- More Than a Checklist: Meaningful Indigenous Inclusion in Higher Education
by Pidgeon https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v4i1.436
Relational Understanding & Qualitative Career Assessment
Relationships are the story. We understand our self through how we talk about our self. I call this Storying, but it’s a frequent concept in both Indigenous educational philosophies and in qualitative career advising and assessment. It’s helping a student or client understand their social reality, their historical reality, and their relational reality. Who are they connected to, what have they done, what opportunities have they had, why, how does that impact their choices?
We learn more about ourselves the more we tell our story. It becomes an iterative process where we change our story as we retell our story and as we understand more about it. It changes as we understand how the past impacts our choices, how our present presents our choices, and preparing for the things we look for in the future.
There are lots of other qualitative assessment tools that can be used as well or in connection with this idea. The focus is to help clients reflect critically on their past and future.
- Career Construction Counseling by Savickas
- Career Writing by Lengelle & Meijers
- My Career Chapter by McIlveen
- Many others including card sorts, writing exercises and dialogical work
Creating a guide for critical reflection
- Determine the reasons for your questions
- What do you want clients to reflect on?
- How much is about the past, how much about the future?
- Are you helping them assess potential futures? Past barriers?
- Ensure you have a line where the client needs referrals to other professionals
- Personal counselling
- Academic or Admissions advising
- Other career development professionals
Help clients and students to consider their:
- History
- Skills
- Abilities
- Knowledge
- Interests
- Preferred work contexts
- Goals
- Values
It should be based on their strengths and what they love being good at, not on their weaknesses or what they want to avoid. Focus on the positives of the past and future. What have been your best experiences and what could be your best future.
I guide my work with the Indigenous Wholistic Framework published by Michelle Pidgeon.
My Guiding Questions
- Tell me about yourself.
- What was your goal when you first started university?
- What is your current objective in the next year? Five years?
- What was the circumstance or situation or event that led you to wanting to talk to a career advisor.
- On your current path what are three jobs you’d be interested in doing?
- Tell me about your last job, what did you do, what did you learn, how did you grow?
- Tell me about any volunteering you’ve done?
- When you think about the world, what is a problem you wish you could work toward solving?
- What Causes do you care about?
- What are you best at? / What are you most proud of being able to do well?
- What are other skills or abilities you’re proud of that we haven’t talked about?
- What do you already know about the industry you’re looking at?
- Tell me about your support network.
- Who do you ask for advice? Family, Friends, Mentors?
- What does your family mean to you? Who do you call family? What do they do? Have you talked to them about what they like about what they do?
- What are your communities? How are you involved in your communities?
- What are your intellectual strengths, where do you excel? Who in your family or community do you talk with or go to about intellectual matters?
- What are your emotional strengths, where do you excel? Who in your family or community do you talk with or go to about emotional matters?
- What are your spiritual strengths? Who in your family or community do you talk with or go to about spiritual matters?
- What are your physical strengths? Who in your family or community do you talk with or go to about physical matters?
- Tell me about your path now and how it connects with what we’ve just discussed? Who do you see yourself as?
- Who do you wish you could be?
Remember, the purpose is to enable the client to continue developing and growing.