Perspective on Career Planning Lecture Notes
Lecture 1.1
How careers progress
Transital, linear, etc
Different (external) factors take place
E.g. family, children, boss, economic crisis, boss
Matter of coincidence / no control
Nonsense to work on career planning?
If it happens it happens?
You can exert control over career? (scientific theory)
Planned Happenstance
- Happenstance: much of what happens on our career is based on chance events
- Planned: being able to seize and generate chance events
If you do nothing, nothing happens…
Prepare for things
Making the most of ‘chance’. Put yourself out there. Seize events when they do occur.
E.g. explain interests and ambitions, present yourself, etc.
Planned happenstance theory
Two foundations:
- Generating chance events: exploration generates chance opportunities
- Seizing change events: skills enable people to seize opportunities
5 skills:
- Curiosity
- Persistence
- Flexibility
- Risk taking
- Optimism
More decided students show more persistence, optimism and risk taking skills
More undecided students show more flexibility
Flexibility
- Belief that much of your career is determined by chance
, - Willingness to go along with this, to be flexible
- Can lead to delayed decisions
Open mindedness
- Sensible given the uncertainty of the future
- Characterised by curiosity
- But: there is a fine line between open mindedness and indecisiveness and
procrastination
(people tend to hide behind concept of being open mindedness but are in fact just
procrastinating and being indecisive, and not active in coping)
4 steps
1) Understand how planned happenstance was part of your past
2) Transform curiosity into opportunities for learning - to be open minded
3) Produce desirable chance events
4) Overcome barriers to action
3) producing desirable chance events
How can you act now to produce the likelihood of a desirable chance event?
e.g.
- Visit websites of interests
- Take interesting classes
- Conduct informational interviews
- Attend career events
4) barriers
e.g.
- Lack of aforementioned 5 skills
- Seeing problems as overwhelming
- Fearing reactions of others
- Resistance to change
- Stress and unproductive coping strategies
Coping with career indecisions
Stress
- Having to make important decisions in your life
- E.g. wrong decisions? Don't know what to choose?
Coping
3 classes of coping:
, 1) Productive coping
- Instrumental information seeking
- Emotional information seeking
- Problem solving
- Flexibility
- accomodation
2) Support seeking
- Instrumental help seeking
- Emotional help seeking
- Delegation
3) Nonproductive coping
- Escape
- Helplessness
- Isolation
- Submission
- Opposition
Coping and indecision
Productive coping is positively related to career decidedness and non productive coping is
negatively related to career decidedness
Lipshits-braziler et al. (2016)
Conclusion?
- Career orientation is not about making a decision, but more about the process
- Undecidedness can be a sign of open mindedness and flexibility
- Undecidedness can also be a sign of unproductive coping strategies
Social cognitive model
Adaptive career behaviours
ACB = actions that people employ to help their own education and career
- Proactive: e.g. in anticipation of an upcoming career choice moment
- Reactive: e.g. in response to an unexpected event
Depend on your career stage:
● Exploration stage
- Exploring possible career paths
- Making career relevant decisions
Lecture 1.1
How careers progress
Transital, linear, etc
Different (external) factors take place
E.g. family, children, boss, economic crisis, boss
Matter of coincidence / no control
Nonsense to work on career planning?
If it happens it happens?
You can exert control over career? (scientific theory)
Planned Happenstance
- Happenstance: much of what happens on our career is based on chance events
- Planned: being able to seize and generate chance events
If you do nothing, nothing happens…
Prepare for things
Making the most of ‘chance’. Put yourself out there. Seize events when they do occur.
E.g. explain interests and ambitions, present yourself, etc.
Planned happenstance theory
Two foundations:
- Generating chance events: exploration generates chance opportunities
- Seizing change events: skills enable people to seize opportunities
5 skills:
- Curiosity
- Persistence
- Flexibility
- Risk taking
- Optimism
More decided students show more persistence, optimism and risk taking skills
More undecided students show more flexibility
Flexibility
- Belief that much of your career is determined by chance
, - Willingness to go along with this, to be flexible
- Can lead to delayed decisions
Open mindedness
- Sensible given the uncertainty of the future
- Characterised by curiosity
- But: there is a fine line between open mindedness and indecisiveness and
procrastination
(people tend to hide behind concept of being open mindedness but are in fact just
procrastinating and being indecisive, and not active in coping)
4 steps
1) Understand how planned happenstance was part of your past
2) Transform curiosity into opportunities for learning - to be open minded
3) Produce desirable chance events
4) Overcome barriers to action
3) producing desirable chance events
How can you act now to produce the likelihood of a desirable chance event?
e.g.
- Visit websites of interests
- Take interesting classes
- Conduct informational interviews
- Attend career events
4) barriers
e.g.
- Lack of aforementioned 5 skills
- Seeing problems as overwhelming
- Fearing reactions of others
- Resistance to change
- Stress and unproductive coping strategies
Coping with career indecisions
Stress
- Having to make important decisions in your life
- E.g. wrong decisions? Don't know what to choose?
Coping
3 classes of coping:
, 1) Productive coping
- Instrumental information seeking
- Emotional information seeking
- Problem solving
- Flexibility
- accomodation
2) Support seeking
- Instrumental help seeking
- Emotional help seeking
- Delegation
3) Nonproductive coping
- Escape
- Helplessness
- Isolation
- Submission
- Opposition
Coping and indecision
Productive coping is positively related to career decidedness and non productive coping is
negatively related to career decidedness
Lipshits-braziler et al. (2016)
Conclusion?
- Career orientation is not about making a decision, but more about the process
- Undecidedness can be a sign of open mindedness and flexibility
- Undecidedness can also be a sign of unproductive coping strategies
Social cognitive model
Adaptive career behaviours
ACB = actions that people employ to help their own education and career
- Proactive: e.g. in anticipation of an upcoming career choice moment
- Reactive: e.g. in response to an unexpected event
Depend on your career stage:
● Exploration stage
- Exploring possible career paths
- Making career relevant decisions
