04/01/2023

Career Words Matter: Using History and the Language of Career to Help Clients Navigate their Development

By Megan Pritchett

“There are no easy answers, but if the world around you is changing,
you must be ready to change too.”
_{~ John Krumboltz and Al Levin, Luck is No Accident (2010, p. 6)}

It is a strange time to be working in the world. The global economy is continually shifting, new career fields emerge every day, and individuals are faced with more choices than ever about how they want to spend their working hours. To help clients navigate these increased choices and their existential career questions, I often rely on two tools: history and language. In the face of overwhelming uncertainty, understanding career history can help clients contextualize their position in the trajectory of work as part of human history and providing new language related to career can help them articulate their hopes and concerns more effectively.

Our Place in the History of Work

If I am working with a client who is particularly stuck on the idea of “finding their passion” in their career, I sometimes will ask them this: “Imagine it’s 1759, and you’re interviewing someone anywhere in the world about their work. Let’s say it’s baking bread. Now imagine that you’re asking them if they’re passionate about baking bread. What do you think their response would be to you?” The client usually responds with a laugh, and I can then explain that many ideas that we have about work are new concepts.

How we think about work is a direct result of the historical influences around us, and we construct meaning to adapt to the times we live in. If I need to reinforce the point, I may share the title of Lysander Richard’s book Vocophy: The New Profession. A System Enabling a Person to Name the Calling or Vocation One is Best Suited to Follow, and ask the client to guess the year it was published. Most of my clients have guessed it was published in the 1920s or 1930s, and are surprised to learn it was actually published in 1881. Many people are still searching for the career path that they are “best suited to follow,” and clients may feel relief to see that their struggles are not unique to them or to their moment in history. Plus, it’s a fun fact to point out that career counselors were originally called “vocophers.”

Career History and Work Identity

In Mark Savickas’ closing remarks at the 2013 NCDA conference, he focused on the discourse and lexicon of career language through the lens of history. He identified four broad career eras that each have unique and distinct language themes: 1) the agricultural era, 2) the industrial era, 3) the corporate era, and 4) the digital era. He noted that our current paradigm is shifting from personality to identity and that “in the past, one’s job or career fixed one’s identity, virtually for life.” (Savickas, 2013, 40:33). But in modern times, he noted that the “tentative, experimental, discontinuous, [and] ever changing” nature of the present day can lead to uncertainty about one’s identity and place in the world. 

Reactions to the precarity of work today can manifest differently for each client, but it often centers on fear of a changing identity, fear of disappointing others, or fear of failure. Action is a key step to encourage clients to take, as Dr. Dawn Graham highlights in her book on career changing, Switchers: “The best way to embrace identity changes is to get out of our heads and act by crafting experiments, shifting connections, taking time to evaluate, and making sense of it all to move forward” (2018, p. 31). We cannot think our way through our careers; it can only be through action that we build momentum toward our goals. When our clients can see their place in history, it can sometimes bring comfort in knowing that the pressures they are feeling are not solely due to their own perceived shortcomings or failures and open the door to taking new and bolder action.

The Language of “Deciding”

Career history is inextricably tied to language, therefore how we talk about career matters significantly. Each word matters and the questions we ask matter even more. When I coach graduate students, I often hear them express frustration over being asked by career counselors and coaches about “what they want to do.” The wording of this question implies an old model of career decision-making: first one decides on an occupation, and then one takes action to pursue it. For some clients this linear process may work out well, but for people who are multitalented and interested in many career pathways, “what do you want to do?” is a simple question that can trigger complex feelings of shame and inadequacy.

Maybe it is because I was trained in career counseling by Dr. Al Levin at Sacramento State, but I have found Happenstance Learning Theory (Krumboltz, 2009) to be a very effective framework for helping clients embrace new language around their career. Clients can find it useful to reflect on what it means to “decide” their career path and to consider the idea of taking action as an antidote to decision paralysis. When we change the language we use to engage clients, it creates a domino effect where they can then reflect on the language they use and if that language is helpful to them. When I tell clients that the point of working with a career practitioner is not to have them decide their career path, I often visibly see their shoulders drop down in relief. They are desperate for career language that reflects how life actually is, not how we’ve been taught it to be.

Prompts for Using History and Language with Clients

There is a critical need for career counselors, coaches, and educators to help people navigate the present day’s immense changes to the way we work. Some ways that you can bring reflection on history and language to your work include:

• Invite clients to consider the history of work. Ask them what it may have been like for someone in the past to be asked about their work, their interests, and their passions
• Encourage clients to take action. Share that in today’s world, deciding does not have to precede action. As Krumboltz and Levin reminded readers of their book, Luck Is No Accident, “All too frequently people wait for an opportunity to knock on their door. Waiting doesn’t work. We want you to do the knocking” (2010, p. 107).
• Reflect on the language of career. Consider the words we use in our work as career practitioners and ask yourself: what career era influenced the use of this word? What implicit message about career development or work does this word carry with it? Is there another word that better conveys the career decision-making approach that would benefit a given client?

By connecting to career development history and considering the ways we use career language, practitioners can connect past to future, and encourage confidence in the idea that even if it does not all work out as one planned, at least we were present for the journey.

References

Graham, D. (2018). Switchers. HarperCollins Leadership.

Krumboltz, J. D. (2009). The happenstance learning theory. Journal of Career Assessment, 17(2), 135-154. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072708328861

Krumboltz, J. & Levin, A. (2010). Luck is no accident: Making the most of happenstance in your life and career (2nd edition). Impact.

Richards, L. S. (1881). Vocophy: The new profession. A system enabling a person to name the calling or vocation one is best suited to follow. Marlboro.

Savickas, M. (2013, July). NCDA Closing Session July 2013. National Career Development Association.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJC6e2caZ6E

Megan Pritchett, M.S., is an Executive Coach for 2U, Inc. and a career counselor with expertise in providing career development to women, career changers, and career advancers. She is the owner of CareerDork LLC, a private career coaching business which helps women build confidence in the way they write and speak about themselves in the job search process. She has a Master of Science in Career Counseling from California State University, Sacramento and a bachelor's degree in Sociology from Scripps College. Originally from Fair Oaks, CA, she now lives in Denver, Colorado with her fiancé and many houseplants. Contact: careerdork@gmail.com, careerdork.com, or www.linkedin.com/in/megan-pritchett