Keywords

Introduction: Career Development and Career Counselling in the First Two Decades of the 21st Century

As we approach the close of the second decade of the 21st Century, it is worth noting the progress that has been made in strengthening the global presence of vocational guidance and related services, such as career development and career counselling. At the turn of the century, there was considerable interest in terms of changes in the world of work and the challenges ahead. In fact, before the arrival of the 21st Century itself, significant entities were weighing in on what to expect. In the United States, for instance, the United States Department of Labor (USDL) welcomed the new century with a publication entitled Futurework, Trends and Challenges for Work in the 21st century (USDL, 1999). More globally, the International Labor Organization met the new century focused on the availability of “decent work” for workers in the 21st century thus launching its Decent Work Agenda (ILO, 1999). Others would follow with the arrival of the new century, seeking to prepare us for changes in the world of work and careers (Collin & Young, 2000; Karoly & Panis, 2004).

More recently, the World Bank weighed in with a flagship report entitled World Development Report 2019: The Changing Nature of Work (World Bank, 2019). Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group, commented on the unique nature of this project. Kim noted the current growing global economy and the decreasing rate of poverty. He was quick to acknowledge that even with encouraging news there are challenges ahead, including those found in the world of work. Kim highlighted the need to avoid “simple and prescriptive solutions” focusing instead on the human capital aspects of the future of work (World Bank, 2019, p. vii).

He explained it as follows:

Many jobs today, and many more in the near future, will require specific skills—a combination of technological know-how, problem-solving, and critical thinking—as well as soft skills such as perseverance, collaboration, and empathy. The days of staying in one job, or with one company, for decades are waning. In the gig economy, workers will likely have many gigs over the course of their careers, which means they will have to be lifelong learners. (p. vii)

The report itself arrives as the most distinct yet from the World Bank since it began publishing World Development Reports over 40 years ago. This status has been achieved as a result of posting the report online as it was being developed, encouraging feedback from readers around the world (World Bank, 2019, p. viii). The nature of work is indeed changing but so too is the manner in which we approach the changes.

Chapter Structure

The first part of the chapter introduces some of the new perspectives in career development and counselling that have arrived in the first two decades of the 21st Century including a brief discussion of career construction theory and the paradigm of life design. The second part of the chapter addresses the definition of youth as a population, as well as some of the unique challenges youth face as they approach and enter adulthood, including youth employment. The third part of the chapter opens an overview of life design counselling as a possible framework of intervention for addressing the needs of youth populations. The fourth part of the chapter describes two interventions, the Career Construction Interview (CCI) (Savickas, 2015) and My Career Story (Savickas & Hartung, 2012), a workbook designed to simulate the CCI, developed for working with both individuals and groups. The fifth part of the chapter provides a discussion that acknowledges difficult challenges while highlighting some of the encouraging efforts of scholars and practitioners including significant contributions from scholars in South Africa as well as the work of the Life Design Research Group and recent significant special issues within the professional literature that indicate a positive direction forward toward the future of the field. The chapter finishes up with a conclusion that connects the innovations of the origins of our profession to the innovations of the present day and the future.

New Arrivals in Career Development and Counselling

The new millennium brought with it new approaches in terms of theory and practice in career development and counselling. Our experiences of working and its personal meanings in our lives (Blustein, 2006; Duffy, Blustein, Diemer, & Autin, 2016) has received greater attention as has the relational aspects of our working lives (Blustein, 2011). Others have embraced the elements of chance and complexity in career development (Pryor & Bright, 2003, 2011; Krumboltz, 2009).

Career Construction Theory and the Paradigm of Life Design

Career construction theory (Savickas, 2002, 2005, 2013) has the distinction of not only being an innovation theoretically, but likewise is distinguished as being part of a larger paradigm, that being life design (Savickas et al. 2009; Savickas, 2012). Life design and career construction theory look more specifically at the self and how we construct ourselves and our careers. Savickas (2019) noted the need for something else among the traditional interventions of modernity’s career guidance and high modernity’s career education. Thus, Savickas underscores the significance of the arrival of post modernity’s career counselling (p. 10). Savickas (2012, 2019) declared that the aim was not to replace existing interventions but rather to take a place beside them.

Who Are the Youth?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines youth as “the time when one is young; the early part or period of life; more specifically, the period from puberty till the attainment of full growth, between childhood and adult age” (Youth, 2018). The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has suggested that “Youth’ is best understood as a period of transition from the dependence of childhood to adulthood’s independence and awareness of our interdependence as members of a community. Youth is a more fluid category than a fixed age-group” (UNESCO, n.d.). UNESCO’s definition though recognizes an age range that includes when a person “may leave compulsory education, and the age at which he/she finds his/her first employment” (UNESCO, n.d.). It is likewise noted that the upper range of that period has been increasing over the years due to unemployment, as well as, the struggle of young people to be able to achieve their independence by establishing a life outside their family of origin. UNESCO settles on the UN definition of youth for regional and international activities of the organization, as the UN definition is one used to preserve statistical consistency. The UN definition of youth is the age range from 15 to 24 years of age. UNESCO becomes more flexible with its definition at the national level honoring an individual country’s definition (UNESCO, n.d.). The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development adheres to the age range of 15–24 years of age in describing youth particularly as it relates to employment and unemployment (OECD, 2018).

Within the aforementioned age range, a great deal transpires. Youth often finish their compulsory education and move in the direction of work, advanced training, or education. In many places the late teens to mid-20s comprises a time for young people to pursue a traditional four-year college or university education. Other young people might choose technical education or an apprenticeship, while others might choose another type of on the job training or perhaps work that requires no advanced preparation at all. In some instances, for a variety of reasons, young people might choose to or not be able to enter the world of work. The global economic crisis of 2007–2008 had lasting repercussions particularly for young people trying to get started in their training, education, and careers. However, the struggle for young people getting started in life and achieving their own sense of independence has been problematic for years.

Changing Times in Adulthood

Arnett (2000) provided an excellent means by which to conceptualize the life cycle of young people between the ages of 18 and 25, highlighting its distinction from adolescence or young adulthood. Emerging adulthood for Arnett described a period of time for young people who were not quite in adolescence anymore but not fully into what might be defined as adulthood yet. Still Arnett cautioned, “emerging adulthood exists only in cultures that allow young people a prolonged period of independent role exploration during the late teens and twenties” (Arnett, 2000, p. 469). Arnett highlighted the changes that took place in the last 50 years of the Twentieth Century that resulted in young people taking longer than previous generations to get married and start families, against the backdrop of increased activity in pursuing higher education. Arnett cited the upward shift in age for people getting married citing the US Census Bureau figures for the years 1970 and 1996. Between these years the median age for marriage for women increased from 21 in 1970 to 25 in 1996. For men the median age shifted from 23 to 27 during this same period (Arnett, 2000). By 2017, those figures had climbed once again with the median age at first marriage averaging 28.1 years for women and 29.9 years for men (United States Census Bureau, 2017). Arnett noted the median age of the birth of the first child reflected something similar. Looking at data between 1970 and 2000 when Arnett’s article entitled Emerging Adulthood: A Theory of Development From the Late Teens through the Twenties was published, the mean age at first birth for women went from 21.4 years of age for women in 1970 to 24.9 years of age in 2000 (Matthews & Hamilton, 2002). Between 2000 and 2014 there was a 1.4 year increase in the mean age for first time mothers increasing from 24.9 in 2000 to 26.3 years of age in 2014 with a greater increase being observed in the latter half of this period (Matthews & Hamilton, 2016). Understanding the present state of first time parenting from a father’s perspective is a bit more elusive, though a recent Stanford University study sheds some light. The mean paternal age in the US has indeed risen over the last 40 years with variations in terms of race, geography, and level of education. (Khandwala, Zhang, Lu, & Eisenberg, 2017, p. 2110). Essentially, men are waiting longer to become fathers while some continue fathering later in life. Across all levels of education, men are waiting longer to enter fatherhood, with the fathers earning college degrees being older on average at 33.3 years. Similar results have been found in countries such as Germany and England (Khandwala, Zhang, Lu, & Eisenberg, 2017).

Arnett’s theory can help explain life for many young people around the globe but as with any theory, it has its limits. Arnett, Žukauskienė, and Sugimura (2014) discussed the implications for emerging adulthood in high-income countries, thus perhaps making it more applicable to some places more than others. Arnett et al., in this instance, provide an age range for emerging adulthood spanning ages 18–29. In our preparation of this particular chapter, we admit that we cannot account for or address every consideration in capturing the theoretical descriptions of youth or addressing every scenario facing youth with a single theoretical approach or intervention. Our contribution will likely be appropriate in some places more than others. Universal applicability may well be beyond the scope of the present contribution. For instance, in some places like India, the Middle East, and perhaps North Africa, young educated adults struggle with what has been described as waithood (Singerman, 2007). Singerman recognizing a similar term used by economists described waithood as:

Economists speak of the phenomenon of “wait unemployment,” or enduring long periods of unemployment, particularly by educated young people in countries with large public sectors, to secure a high paying ‘permanent’ position with good benefits. In a similar vein, many young people in Egypt and throughout the region experience “wait adulthood” or “waithood” as they negotiate their prolonged adolescence and remain single for long periods of time while trying to save money to marry. (p. 6)

Singerman acknowledged the dependent nature of this period where young people lack financial independence, noting that marriage is often financed by one’s family. The significance of both family and societal values related to relationships and expectations of individuals and couples who are not yet married warrants serious consideration (Singerman, 2007, p. 6). Another demographic that might be outside the scope of our recommendations are youth who are not currently involved in education, employment, or some sort of training (NEET). However, the aforementioned considered, we will leave it to the reader’s determination as to what might or might not be useful and adaptable to the work they are doing. Overall, it is our opinion, that life design and career construction theory has something to offer the aforementioned populations.

Youth Employment

In 2015, the world’s youth population between the ages 15–24 numbered 1.2 billion. (UNDESA, 2015). A recent article in the Wall Street Journal (Duehren, 2018) noted the lowest youth summer unemployment rate for those 16–24 years old in over 50 years for the US. The unemployment rate was 9.2% for those seeking employment in 2018. It was indeed good news at first glance. Beyond the headline, however, were the realities that indicated, for some, the outlook was not quite as positive. For instance, after hitting a record low earlier in 2018, the unemployment rate for Black or African Americans rose again which resulted in a rather small 0.3% increase in unemployment among Black or African American youth from the previous year. The percentage of young people in America participating in the workforce was 60.6% in July, which has held steady since 2017 and represents the highest rate in almost 10 years as the participation rate has experienced a significant decline starting in 1989, a year when 77.5% of youth participated in the summer labor force. One expert noted that summer work opportunities are in competition with other possibilities such as unpaid internships and non-work related activities (Duehren, 2018, p. A2). The recent newspaper article provided excellent information for the US but certainly did not reflect the global realities of youth seeking employment.

In 2017, in spite of positive indicators of global economic conditions, the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimated an expected slight rise in the global unemployment rate to 13.1% for youth under the age of 25. The estimated number of youth unemployed worldwide was 70.9 million, a decrease from 2009 high of 76.7 million. The percentage itself does not reflect the extreme realities in places such as Northern Africa, where the unemployment rate for youth teeters near 30% (ILO, 2017). According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), as of 2017, 53.4% of the youth labor force in South Africa remained unemployed. The next closest country to South Africa, in terms of youth unemployment, is Greece where in 2017, 43.6% of its youth population remained unemployed (OECD, 2018). An ILO publication entitled World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2018, (ILO, 2018) still identified youth unemployment as a critical issue:

The lack of employment opportunities for youth (i.e. those under 25 years of age) presents another major global challenge. Young people are much less likely to be employed than adults, with the global youth unemployment rate standing at 13 per cent, or three times higher than the adult rate of 4.3 percent. (p.2)

Life Design Counselling: Innovation and Meeting the Needs of Youth

Life design (Savickas et al., 2009; Savickas, 2012) emerged in first decade of the 21st century in response to a need for a new paradigm for career intervention based on the changes faced by workers at the turn of the new century. The world of work had become less predictable and permanent, more prone to temporary arrangements and uncertainty. The crisis in terms of both models and methods in career development recognized, life design emerged as a new paradigm for career intervention better suited and matched with the world of work in the new century. Given the unique challenges faced by youth populations in present day, life design provides an approach that seems well suited for the world of work encountered by young people at present, in addition to the more traditional models of career intervention of the 20th century. Savickas (2012) noted that the aim of life design is not to replace traditional paradigms of intervention but rather to take its place beside them thus enhancing a counsellors available options of intervention (p. 17). Thus, for youth populations there is hope and promise within life design for a world of work that has been described as VUCA or volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. Savickas et al. (2009) described the life design framework as being “life-long, holistic, contextual, and preventive”, its interventions seeking to impact an individual’s “adaptability, narratability, and activity” (p. 245). Adaptability (Savickas, 1997) is used in life design as a means of describing how clients can successfully anticipate and meet changes as they navigate the world of work via what Savickas et al. (2009) refer to as career construction theory’s five Cs: concern, control, curiosity, confidence, and commitment. Concern should come to reflect a perspective that has hope and optimism. Control relates not only to self-regulation but implies being able to make the necessary adjustments across various settings, as well as one’s capabilities of having some sense of control within a particular environment. Curiosity speaks to exploration of possibilities with regard to both self and opportunities. Confidence has to do with one’s feelings about their ability to meet the challenges they might encounter in moving forward toward their goals and aspirations in life. Commitment addresses a broader focus beyond what one might have at a particular moment in terms of employment and rather includes one’s ability to reflect upon their overall life projects and thus remaining committed to possibilities and action even in the face of uncertainty (Savickas et al., 2009, p. 245). Narratability is used to describe the story that clients are able to construct and tell as a result of the work of the client and counsellor. Life design uses narratability as a means of helping a client construct a story that can be seen as having coherence and continuity. Activity or meaningful action is essential in that it moves individuals beyond verbal discourse or talk and into acting or doing. By taking action and doing, the connection can be made in terms of the abilities one likes to use, as well as the interests one enjoys pursuing. Finally, intentionality is desired as a result of meaning making efforts, as it allows for a story that travels with the client, becoming a bridge of sorts between various jobs or positions one may hold across their career, as well as replacing certain long gone societal holding environments (Savickas et al., p. 246).

Savickas (2015) described the Life Design Counselling Manual as an application of career construction theory within life design counselling, citing the broader nature of life designing in general (pp. 5–6). Savickas drew distinctions between guidance and counselling, noting guidance’s foundations in logical positivism and the significance of scores of inventories, compared to the use of stories within life design counselling that focus on the unique nature of the individual client (Savickas, 2015, pp. 7–9). Career construction theory used in life design counselling relies heavily on the relationship between the client and the counsellor working each based in their own expertise, the counsellor with their expertise in the career construction process and the client with their expertise rooted in the stories of their life. The expertise in one’s own stories, however, is not enough to achieve success within the counselling process. Reflection upon one’s own stories is essential, as is the act of sense-making (Savickas, 2015, pp. 10–14). Practitioners utilizing career construction theory understand that clients often show up when there is a transition afoot. In counselling, the client can share their transition narrative. From there, the counsellor can go about assisting the client in making sense of their story and how they might respond.

Intervention Model

The intervention model outlined by Savickas et al. (2009) itself is fairly straightforward in six steps:

  1. 1.

    The problem is defined and what the client hopes to achieve with the counsellor is identified.

  2. 2.

    The client and counsellor explore how the client currently views self in the present as well as how the client’s self is organized and functions.

  3. 3.

    As a means of opening up perspectives, stories are used help make the implicit explicit and stories may well be reviewed, reorganized, revised, and revitalized.

  4. 4.

    The presenting problem is placed into the new story that has emerged, thus creating an opportunity for the client to explore new or anticipated identities.

  5. 5.

    Specific activities are identified that will assist the client in being able to test out or further realize the aforementioned identity possibilities.

  6. 6.

    Follow-up with the client both short and long term (pp. 246–247).

Savickas (2015) wrote more specifically with regard to client narratives:

The process begins with addressing a client’s tension by constructing micro-narratives that provide symbolic representations of concrete experience. This is followed by deconstruction of limiting ideas and false beliefs with attention concentrated on reflective observation and self-examination. The third step produces new intentions by reconstructing a macro-narrative with abstract conceptualizations that beget new realizations. Finally, client and counsellor co-construct an action plan that extends revisioning of the self through active experimentation in the real world. (pp. 9–10).

Useful Interventions

Two useful interventions rooted in the life design paradigm are the career construction interview (Savickas, 2015) and the My Career Story workbook (Savickas & Hartung, 2012). The first is an interview that is used with individual clients. The My Career Story workbook can be used individually as well as in a group setting for high school age populations and beyond. Savickas strategically chose the term useful in his first question of the Career Construction Interview (CCI) (“How may I be useful to you?”) indicating that counsellors should be quite deliberate in doing so in recognition of the agency of the client. Using the word helpful might imply that the client is helpless rather than being there to use the counselling services made available to them (Savickas, 2015, p. 16).

The Career Construction Interview

The CCI is structured to solicit information about the client as a means of assisting them in identifying key information and life themes, as well as, addressing the current transition in their life. Upon gathering information about how the counsellor can be useful to the client, the interview’s first question gathers information about early role models in the life of the client as a means of understanding the client’s own construction of self. Next, is a question addressing the client’s favorite magazines, television shows, and websites as a means of having an idea of the kind of environments and activities that capture the client’s interest. This question now includes favorite video games given their current popularity. A third question solicits the client’s current favorite story from a book or movie. What is important is not the central character but rather the story itself, as one’s current favorite story often reflects a story or a script and client can perhaps utilize in crafting a desired outcome for their present transition (Savickas, 2015, pp. 31–33). The fourth question gathers a client’s favorite saying or motto. What is significant here are favorite sayings or mottos a client has adopted as their own. It is important that in gathering mottos that the counsellor specifies favorite sayings that the client has selected, rather than those provided by others (i.e., parent, grandparent, etc.) as those selected by the client likely have a more unique, personal meaning. Mottos or favorite sayings reflect the best self-advice the client might have in trying situations, such as the transition they presently face (Savickas, 2015, pp. 33–34). The fifth question solicits three early recollections from the client. Savickas noted that early recollections serve as a “backstage” view of what is going on with the client in the present and serve as a means of having a better understanding of a client’s pain or preoccupation (Savickas, 2015, p. 35).

The Career Construction Interview (Savickas 2015, 2019) has received considerable attention in the literature across the first two decades of the century and has witnessed a transformation from its earlier version as the Career Style Assessment to the Career Story Interview (CSI) and its most recent and present form as the Career Construction Interview (CCI). Contributions to the literature that provide a case study approach in using the CSI or the CCI are available (Barclay & Stoltz, 2016a, 2016b; Cardoso, 2016; Di Fabio, 2016; Hartung & Vess, 2016; Maree, 2013, 2014, 2016a, 2016b, 2017, 2018; Maree & Crous, 2012; Reid, Bimrose, & Brown, 2016; Taber & Briddick, 2011; Taber, Hartung, Briddick, Briddick, & Rehfuss, 2011; Savickas, 2005, 2011, 2013, 2019; Savickas & Lara, 2016). Savickas (2006, 2009) provides a total of three case studies across two resources that utilize video demonstrations of the CSI or CCI.

My Career Story

My Career Story (MCS) (Savickas & Hartung, 2012) is a workbook that can be used to assist individuals with authoring their own life stories. Hartung and Santelli (2018) noted that by design the MCS was meant to simulate the Career Construction Interview (p. 1). Hartung and Santelli provided an overview of the MCS workbook as well as preliminary findings on its validity. Findings and limitations considered, Hartung and Santelli noted that while more extensive research is needed, “the MCS workbook offers a promising theory-based, practical method for individuals and groups to use in constructing their life careers” (Hartung & Santelli, 2018, p. 318).

The authors of the MCS were quite deliberate in providing an overview for the user in terms of its purpose. Savickas and Hartung (2012) noted their intent in assisting those using MCS as they might be planning and making decisions about their career. Hartung and Santelli (2018) cited previous research (Brown & Ryan Crane, 2000; Brown et al., 2003) supporting the use of resources like workbooks as interventions for those seeking assistance with career planning and choice (p. 310). Savickas and Hartung (2012) recognized the significance of being able to explore and make decisions about one’s career future with confidence and a sense of control. MCS lends itself to those facing some sort of transition in terms of their career path. While respecting the traditional matching model the MCS moves in the direction of something more meaningful, assisting the individual with the development of their life story while addressing the critical questions of “who” (“Who am I?”), “where” (“Where do I hope to fit into the world of work?”), and “how” (“How do I plan to go about doing that?”) (p. 1). MCS is described as a resource for individuals, groups, as well as educators working with high school and college populations. The workbook is broken down into three parts: Part I Telling My Story, Part II Hearing My Story, and Part III Enacting My Story.

Part I: Telling my story. Because the MCS workbook was designed to emulate the Career Construction Interview, it begins with an appeal to the individual completing the workbook to provide a brief description of just how they hope the MCS can be useful to them in the transition they are facing. Next, the MCS provides space for a list of occupations the individual has thought they might like to pursue in the past. This is quite similar to the occupational daydreams solicited in the completion of Holland’s Self-Directed Search (Holland & Messer, 2013). Four questions follow that are identical to those asked in the Career Construction Interview (CCI). The first question addresses role models. The individual is asked to recall who they admired growing up and what it was about them that they admired. During the CCI, the interviewer solicits role models as role models can be seen as an individual’s first career choice, part of one’s blueprint for self-construction (Savickas, 2015, p. 27). The CCI may offer an advantage over the MCS in that during the interview the interviewer can ask follow up questions regarding role models as well as ask the interviewee to reflect on similarities and differences between themselves and their role models as well as similarities and differences between their role models. The MCS format is certainly flexible enough that those using the resource with individuals or groups could provide additional instructions toward clarifying similarities and differences related to role models. The next question addresses an individual’s favorite magazines and television shows. As mentioned previously, the MCS was introduced in 2012. Since that time, the CCI has come to include an expansion of this question to include references to an individual’s favorite websites (Savickas, 2015) and more recently favorite video games have been considered as well. This question seeks to discover activities and environments of interest for the individual. The third question solicits an individual’s favorite story whether it be one told in a book, movie, or by some other means. The individual is asked to briefly tell that story. The focus of this question is the story itself and not necessarily the main or favorite character of the story as what is significant for this question is the story or cultural script that maybe attractive to the individual as they are pondering how they would like their transition to be resolved. The final question solicits the individual’s favorite saying or motto. More than one motto is permitted. An individual’s favorite motto is seen as one’s best self-advice. MCS does not solicit early recollections.

Part II: Hearing my story. Part II of MCS assembles a larger story from the pieces gathered in Part I. In this section, individuals can work on their definition of self as the lead character in their story. Next, they can identify the setting of their story or where they hope to be in regard to education or work. Finally, they can consider the script with a plot and theme, which helps them identify how they can utilize work in a way that best incorporates their unique self (Savickas & Hartung, 2012, p. 9). An analysis of self incorporates information related to role models leading to a description of the person they are becoming. An analysis of their favorite magazines and television shows follows, as a means of helping the individual understand the kinds of environments that interest them. A table is provided to assist the MCS user in being able understand the environments of their favorite magazines or television shows via Holland’s R-I-A-S-E-C model. The individual’s career story is summarized as Self, Setting, and Script along with a Success Formula. The MCS user is then instructed to return to page three of the workbook and rewrite their story related to the transition they face and the choices they might make based on what they now know regarding their best self-advice and their identified success formula. Essentially, this assists the individual in identifying their next steps for the road ahead (Savickas & Hartung, 2012, p. 14). The MCS then returns to the original list of occupations solicited on Page 4. The individual is instructed to reexamine the list of occupations they originally provided to see if any of those on the list now appear to be more attractive to them based on what they have learned via the MCS workbook. Additional information is provided on the O*NET system in the event the individual would like to further explore occupations. It should be noted that this section of MCS is likely adaptable to other occupational classification systems outside the US.

Part III: Enacting my story. This section of the workbook encourages the individual in terms of goal development for the next chapter of their story. The individual is then asked to consider what audiences they might choose to share their new story with as a means of clarifying it as well as making it more real. Finally, the individual is asked to consider what steps they might now pursue in taking action toward performing their story, small steps in moving toward their identified goals, which may include “trying out” an identified occupation (Savickas & Hartung, 2012, pp. 17–18).

Two of the present authors (Briddick and Sensoy-Briddick) have previously highlighted the utility of interventions such as the Career Construction Interview or its earlier version known as the Career Story Interview, as well as the My Career Story workbook (Briddick, & Sensoy-Briddick, 2012, 2017). In addition to MCS in English there are translations of it available in Portuguese, German, and French available on the Vocopher website at www.vocopher.com, where the CCI, MCS and the Life Design Counselling Manual can be downloaded as free resources.

Discussion

Challenges remain at present and on our voyage ahead. Time will tell if interventions within the paradigm of life design and career construction theory can effectively assist youth populations facing extreme rates of unemployment that results largely from a lack of available jobs or populations such as youth not in employment, education, or training (NEET). This maybe where the adaptability of the interventions prove key. As life design paradigm grew out of the internationalization movement within career development and counselling, recent international contributions offer hope.

Reid and West (2011) provide an excellent example in how they adapted career construction for use in the UK. In working with NEET youth Reid and West note the necessity of additional “intensive” assistance being available to address issues related to a youth’s NEET status (Reid & West, 2011, p.181). Setlhare-Meltor and Wood (2016) provide an excellent case study utilizing life design in working with a client who had lived on the streets in his youth. More recently, Gerryts (2018) provided a study related to an intervention program she developed based in life design and career construction theory aimed at enhancing the employability of young adults from socio-economically challenged backgrounds in South Africa. With regard to waithood, an interesting study by McEvoy-Levy (2014) explored the narratives of Israeli and Palestinian children in waithood. While the article itself is not related to the professional literature of career development and counselling there are themes that emerged within these narratives related to career and the transition to adulthood. There are narratives of those who experience waithood awaiting our careful, undivided attention and intervention. Life-design and its interventions are assuredly up for the challenge.

How might life design and career construction be useful with youth populations including those described as NEET, in waithood, or perhaps even more vulnerable? Life design and career construction theory can be helpful for youth for the very reasons as it can be for anyone else. The paradigm and theory cannot create employment opportunities or speed up the wait until the conditions arrive that permit young people to begin their own careers and lives outside their families of origin. However, through discovering their stories, vulnerable youth (including disengaged youth) can benefit from three critical pieces of the career construction counselling process (Savickas, 2015) namely the relationship with the counsellor, reflecting on their own story and sense-making that comes as a result. Within some of the revisions of their story such youth can come to see themselves differently (identity) and thus perhaps this difference can help them move in the direction of preferred change. Counselors working with these populations will need to determine if career construction is appropriate for the clients they serve and perhaps what interventions might be most useful alone or as a part of a comprehensive career intervention program.

Setlhare-Meltor and Wood, along with academics like Gerryts, are a part of the emergence of life design and career construction in South Africa. This movement has largely been led by Kobus Maree, who has advanced life design and career construction via numerous contributions to the literature. In fact, Maree (2015) chronicled the research on the topic of life design and career construction in an article entitled Research on life design in (South) Africa: A qualitative analysis. His is a great example for others to follow in various places across the globe where scholars are seeking new possibilities for interventions perhaps not previously considered for vulnerable populations, who seem largely forgotten or ignored by society at large. Maree and others in South Africa answer the question as to whether or not life design and career construction has something to offer even the most vulnerable, marginalized populations with a resounding yes.

The Life Design Research Group will hopefully keep advancing both life design and career construction theory forward. It is worth noting two issues of key journals in recent years that have contributed significantly to the advance of life design and career construction theory and practice. Some of the aforementioned references to case studies applied to the use of the CCI can be found within these issues. The first was a special issue of the Career Development Quarterly that was published in March of 2016 and entitled Special Issue: Advancing Career Intervention for Life Design (Hartung, 2016). The second was special issue of the Journal of Vocational Behavior from December of 2016, which describes the efforts of the Life Design Research Group who met in Paris, France during the summer of 2014 at the Congress of the International Association for Applied Psychology (Savickas & Guichard, 2016). The editors of this issue note that it was during this meeting the group planned its third collaborative project noting that the first had been the development of the life design paradigm (Savickas, et al., 2009) while the second had been the development of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale (Savickas & Porfeli, 2012). The third collaboration was to be a project entitled the Symposium on Reflexivity in Life Design Interventions, which was the research and writing that went into the eight articles that comprised the issue (Savickas & Guichard, 2016, pp. 1–2).

The two aforementioned special issues in the Career Development Quarterly and the Journal of Vocational Behavior were both critical and pivotal for the field and professional literature alike. Future efforts may want to consider special issues such as the Volume 64 2016 issue of the Career Development Quarterly guest edited by Weiqiao Fan and Frederick T. L. Leong and entitled Special Issue: Career Development and Intervention in Chinese Contexts. This issue and others like it can address career development and interventions within cultural contexts highlighting the historical trends as well as advances and innovations along the way. Most recently the Journal of Vocational Behavior published a special issue entitled Career Construction Theory: Conceptual and Empirical Advancements in April of 2019 (Rudolph, et al., 2019).

Conclusion

Frank Parsons, faced similar circumstances of uncertainty as modern practitioners face as he was getting the Vocation Bureau in Boston up and running while pulling together what would eventually become the foundational text of the vocational guidance movement, Choosing a Vocation (Parsons, 1909). Over a hundred years later, we are not only still using Parsons’s original ideas but we have over time, advanced his original mission into a thriving field of service and study. While Parsons’s work is still alive and well, over 100 years later, we have likewise innovated to meet the needs of our clients. The modern world of work and certain populations might lead some to conclude there are striking similarities between the era of Parsons and the present day. In short, young people are still in need of career related services to get started in their work life or career, individuals may find career related services lacking or nonexistent in their community, and the world of work is undergoing considerable change. It is our hope that by providing information on life design and its interventions, we offer a means to not only address some of the more traditional concerns but to likewise address some of the more modern concerns facing young people in their work and careers. As Savickas et al. (2009) noted:

Individuals in the knowledge societies at the beginning of the 21st century must realize that career problems are only a piece of much broader concerns about how to live life in a postmodern world shaped by a global economy and supported by information technology. For instance, the issue of how to balance work-family activities and interactions is becoming salient in people’s reflections about their competencies and aspirations. Managing interactions between different life domains has become a paramount concern for the many peripheral workers whose employment is contingent, free-lance, temporary, external, part-time, and casual. (p. 241)

What we have attempted to do is provide an example of a new paradigm and theory that has emerged in the early years of this century. Both can serve to empower youth via interventions as they move forward in their work or career. Knowledge of themselves and their stories can be useful in charting and navigating their journey ahead. A timeless quote by Frank Parsons in Choosing a Vocation might be useful to us today as scholars and practitioners, inspiring guidance for our own horizons and journeys. “It is better to sail with compass and chart than to drift into an occupation haphazard or by chance, proximity, or uninformed selection; and drift on through it without reaching any port worthy of the voyage” (Parsons, 1909, p. 101). May we keep this in mind as inspiration as we chart our personal and professional courses, seeking to serve the youth of our world on their voyage, while navigating our own.