Career Construction Counseling With a Mid-Career Black Man

Career construction theory: tools, interventions, and future trends

With the emergence of the borderless career era in the 21st century, career coaching has experienced a change from career guidance and career education to career counseling. Career construction theory has been widely used in career counseling and has substantial application value. Introducing career construct theory's assessment tools and intervention strategies is necessary and meaningful. In this mini-review, the qualitative assessment tools and intervention approaches of career construct theory are introduced and analyzed; the qualitative assessment tools include the Career Construction Interview and "My Career Story" workbook, and the intervention approaches include the Computer-Assisted Career Counseling System, workshops, group counseling, and individual counseling. Finally, future research directions are proposed, including an analysis of what kinds of career construction interventions are most effective for which groups and under what conditions, career intervention in the digital age, and the standardization of assessment tools. The novelty of this paper lies in the fact that it purposefully proposes future directions for career construction theory from the perspectives of assessment tools and intervention approaches and that research on the assessment tools and intervention approaches of career construction theory still needs further attention.

Intervention and evaluation of the life design counseling: A case study

This article aims to explore the effectiveness of Life Design Counseling (LDC) for a high school student before choosing the subject. To evaluate LDC outcomes, the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale-China Form was used before and after the intervention. Two measures were used to evaluate the process of LDC: the Innovative Moments Coding System (IMCS) and Future Career Autobiography (FCA). The results show that the LDC approach produced a significant change in career adaptability. In addition, the findings demonstrate a significant narrative movement or change with the evaluation of the process. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Enhancing the sense of self of a mid-career woman through career construction counselling

This article reports on career construction counselling with a purposefully selected, mid-career, midlife woman. A single-case study research design was implemented. Data were gathered using an integrative qualitative and quantitative approach. After the intervention, the participant exhibited an enhanced sense of self-awareness. Career construction counselling can be used to help a mid-career, midlife woman become more aware of the meaning she assigned to life and her view of herself. Future research with diverse mid-career, midlife women (individually or in group-based settings) is needed to establish the effectiveness and long-term effects of the kind of intervention espoused here.

The need for contextually appropriate career counselling assessment: Using narrative approaches in career counselling assessment in African contexts

This article reports on the value of using narrative approaches in career counselling assessment in African contexts in addition to quantitative approaches to enhance the contextual relevance of assessment. The narrative represents a response to calls for local research on career counselling assessment theory and practice. A number of factors that co-determine the development of theory and assessment-related strategies are elaborated herein. The view is expressed that the feasibilities of the 21st-century labour markets should co-determine assessment-related strategies and theory development. In addition, the imperative to constantly innovate assessment in career counselling is emphasised against the background of the shift in emphasis from climbing the career ladder to flourishing in unstructured occupational contexts before some caveats for the successful implementation of postmodern approaches to assessment in career counselling are explicated briefly. The call for advancing the theory base in career counselling assessment-related matters in Global South contexts in general and African contexts in particular is repeated. It is concluded that career counselling assessment theory and practice should be conceptualised from the key perspective that it should particularly meet the basic criteria of contextual relevance.

Integrating Personal and Career Counseling to Promote Sustainable Development and Change

This article reports on the integration of personal and career counseling to promote sustainable development and change. An explorative, descriptive, instrumental, single-case study approach was followed. Qualitative and quantitative data collection strategies were used to collect data, and an integrative career construction counseling intervention was conducted. The intervention comprised, first, elicitation of the participant’s micro- and meso-career-life stories; second, integration of these stories into a coherent macro-story, with the participant’s authorization of the narrative; and, third, co-construction by the participant and the counselor of action steps to facilitate action and forward movement. Integrating personal and career counseling helped to address the participants’ deep-seated personal needs while simultaneously addressing his career counseling needs. Longitudinal, qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods research is essential to determine the value and importance of integrating personal and career counseling. This study contributed to expanding the research on interventions that integrate personal and career counseling, promoting the development of sustainable career-life projects.

Using a Transdisciplinary Interpretive Lens to Broaden Reflections on Alleviating Poverty and Promoting Decent Work

This article aims to broaden current reflections on definitions of decent work and poverty using a transdisciplinary interpretive lens comprising philosophical, juridical, economic, sociological, and psychological understandings. We (the authors) undertook an adapted systematic qualitative review to gather data on different perspectives on decent work and poverty. The article summarizes and compares reflections on the two constructs and proposes an enhancement of the current definition of decent work. The aim is to facilitate the identification and development of new research and intervention projects that can be implemented to promote fair and sustainable economic development, the provision of decent work, and the reduction of poverty globally. We believe that challenges should be dealt with pro-actively rather than reactively and that intervening at the level of primary prevention should lie at the heart of any strategy to promote decent work and alleviate poverty. Radical intervention is needed to ensure that future generations not only survive but develop, grow, and express themselves meaningfully through decent work.