My Careers Adviser told me I should be a ...(insert ridiculous job title here)....

As a Careers Practitioner in Higher Education, working in guidance for 15 years I have heard this more times than I can remember. Any social situation where the "So, what do you do?" question arises regularly evokes this response, usually followed by a slightly accusatory stare as if perhaps it were indeed me who gave this terrible advice. Occasionally the hilarious tale will proceed to include the taking of computer based occupational tests (or even paper based ones) accompanied by more scoffing.

Sometimes it's hard for practitioners to remember how young a field careers guidance is. There are people alive today who can recall a time when career did not involve choice, but rather a continuation of the family trade, or a result of whatever labour was needed wherever you happened to have been born in the world, or class and gender dictated what your life's work would be.

We live in a world vastly different now, where career-seekers aspire to "follow their dreams" and live by a mantra of "be whatever you want to be". (Jim Bright has written an excellent post about why this thinking is troublesome!)

The array of 21st Century life choices is mind blowing - we can choose clothes to influence how we appear to others, craft online identities, pick the hue of our hair and even use lenses to change our eye colour. More astoundingly we can make choices previously considered to be fixed or inherited- giving us freedom to change gender, sexuality and religion. This abundance of choice expands to our careers - with thousands of potential occupations to pick from, and the option to move anywhere, learn anything, be anyone. (If you want to know more about the impact of too much choice I would strongly recommend this book )

However different our world is now, we cannot erase what came before us, and as career practitioners, we cannot forget the career thinkers that laid the foundations of our profession. Nor would we want to, as great swathes of our current practice is based upon theories formed in the early 20th century. We "stand on the shoulders of giants"- psychologists, sociologists and other academics who have painstakingly pursued a quest for knowledge around how people make decisions, what gives people career satisfaction, and crucially; how to help people design their own unique career adventures.

Career theory has developed from it's roots of simplistic (but wonderfully appealing) trait and factor matching approaches - matching the qualities and interests of career seekers with the collective qualities and interests of people employed in different occupations. Theoretical approaches have evolved alongside society's ongoing transformation - as people change how they approach and value their occupations, so must the models that attempt to explain career thinking. Developmental lifespan theories worked well in times where workers stayed in occupations and with one employer long enough to collect their golden watch. In modern times, career changers and mature students and parent-returners have taken the wind out of the sails of linear career theories. Contemporary theories take an universal and holistic approach to address the interplay of individual factors with the unpredictable complexity of life, accounting for the influences of luck as well as global, societal, economic and political influences.

University Careers Services have also undergone transformations. The 70's and 80's brought career planning hubs helping students explore opportunities and plan their futures. The late 90's brought a shift from student to consumer, with the introduction of tuition fees. The introduction of the information superhighway and the social media revolution re-imagined careers services as centres of student networking, nurturing relationships between employers, recruiters and eager students and graduates. The Great Depression of 2008 and the resulting economic downturn brought new challenges, where students, parents and the media increasingly questioned the value of a degree and careers services took an approach based around developing adaptability, resourcefulness and resilience.

Most importantly, career guidance practice has moved on- we have fundamentally changed how we interact with students. Gone is the extreme power differential between client and vocational professional found in early models of guidance, where tools and analyses were used to "diagnose" any underlying career problems. A battery of tests would be administered to assess things such as career maturity, self-efficacy, career myths and decision making skills. The careers expert would then analyse the test scores in order to deliver a "prognosis" of the most appropriate career to pursue. The doctor / patient analogy might help in imagining this way of working, or perhaps a gatekeeper of knowledge, or even a prophet pronouncing a future that is hidden from everyone else's view.

The idea of a careers practitioner whose role is to impart expert knowledge paired with an ability to neatly categorise people and occupations is seductive- who wouldn't want a quick simple solution to the hard work and anxiety that accompanies career decision making?

This approach to careers practice was dominant for many years, and although it has evolved and become part of other strategies, the use of testing in order to give an expert opinion, to provide a "you should be a..." has largely fallen out of favour. Yet it is still remembered, and for many adults this is the type of guidance they experienced. This is not referring to the many excellent interest guides which provide a "you might be interested to find more out about ......." which is fundamentally different to "you should be a......"

It also strikes me that the "you should be a..." approach is intuitive. If you didn't know anything about career theory and someone asked you "what should I be?" you would want to help, want to provide an answer, want to solve the problem. You would want to use your knowledge of jobs to make suggestions. It would be hard not to start generating ideas, hard not to feel the power placed in you by simply being asked the question, being put into the position of expert. Couple that with the dynamic we see in many schools and in the home, the power differential between teacher and pupil and parent and child, and the urge to provide a "you should be a...." is almost irresistible.

So despite careers practitioners moving away from "you should be a ..." many other members of society and professionals in other employment focused roles are still using this model. In my 11 years of giving guidance in schools I have certainly heard many teachers engaging in this type of " careers advice".

How do we, as careers practitioners, differentiate ourselves? How do we show we've moved on? For me, the answer lies in crystal clear contracting with students, whether one to one, in a lecture or in a workshop . Be really explicit about what guidance is, and what it isn't. Smash that crystal ball over and over. Refuse to make suggestions. Smile and shake your head when you're asked "what do you think would be best?"

And next time you find yourself in a pub, or at a party and someone thrills you with the line "my careers adviser told me I should be a grave digger / taxidermist / sewage specialist" laugh and say "isn't it wonderful how far we've come!" and then why not give them a brief run down of the evolution of career theory- I'm sure they'll love it.