Understanding career decisionmaking and progression: Careership revisited

The fifth John Killeen memorial lecture, October 2008

Abstract

In this lecture, I will draw upon my research career to present my latest ideas about career decision-making and career progression. Career decision-making was one of my first research interests, as part of a longitudinal study of the short-lived Training Credits scheme for young people, in the early 1990s. Based upon that work, I, Andrew Sparkes and Heather Hodkinson developed a new theory of career decisionmaking, which we termed ‘Careership’. Since then, further research conducted by myself and other researchers has thrown further light on Careership. In this lecture, I will explain how such new evidence confirmed major parts of the Careership theory, whilst showing the need for some significant modifications to other parts of it. I will conclude by briefly identifying some issues for research, policy and practice that arise from what this research and theorising show.