career guidance reflection essay

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Roelle Ann Santa Maria

May 10th, 2021, reflecting and reimagining your career plan in a challenging context.

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Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

What comes to mind when you’re starting to think about your career? Linear? Uncertainty? Time-bound? A ladder? It’s important to understand that you have to be flexible and adaptable whilst planning for your career. 

Just like life itself, your career journey is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. Great things take time to come to fruition! Instead, when it comes to career planning: start early, prepare, have a strategy, and persevere.  There are usually three stages of job hunting:

• Pre-searching/preparation i.e., career planning
• Active searching.
• Preparing to apply.

In this two-part blog series, we cover the first stage by helping you to: (1) understand yourself and list out your options before finally bringing it all together to (2) create a strategy in order for you to transition into the next stages as seamlessly as possible. 

Reflecting on yourself and career path

Underlying any career decision and building a good strategy requires an understanding of yourself . Consider the following: 

Values –  What is important to me? “I value being respected and working alongside others.” In a career, what motives and drives you to align with an organisation? How visible do you want to be? How quickly do you want to make an impact? There will be no definitive or stable list of what you value in a career, but it’s always good to think about it! 

Interests –   What do I like to do? “I enjoy meeting new people and travelling.” In your career, can you bring your interests into the career plan? For instance, if you have a masters, how can you combine this with other experiences in your career plan? *link*

Skills and abilities –  What am I good at? “I know how to read and write fluently in two languages.” For a career, what qualities or skills do you have that make you stand out? Ask yourself what you can bring to the organisation. 

Strengths –  What comes easily to me? “I’m good at linguistics and learning languages.” In your portfolio of skills, hobbies, and talents, which ones do you enjoy and what comes easily to you? 

Motivators –  What am I passionate about? “I care about sustainability and people.” For a career, what values and passions do you have that align with an organisation? 

Assets –  What experiences do I have? “I was the president of my club and worked in customer service.” List out your experiences and what you can offer, or perhaps a unique selling point that helps differentiate you from other candidates. 

Reflecting on your motivations, hobbies, skill set, the factors that drive you to pursue this path, and seeing whether you align with an organisation’s values are important in order to develop a healthy and positive mindset! 

Re-imagining your career options

Think of the unthinkable, expect the unexpected 

In times of uncertainty, our vision can narrow and we might lose sight of our of opportunities and chances that are available to us. Therefore. . .

Diversify and invest in your many future selves. 

The breadth of possibilities and outcomes — positive or negative — are endless in a challenging context. Some of your existing career plans and labour markets you were looking into could have spiralled out of control. 

Don’t put your eggs in one basket, and don’t presume there’s only one basket available . In this context, the fewer jobs and opportunities you apply for that you are capable of results in greater risks or scarcity. 

That being said, none of us know what the future holds, thus envisioning a career ladder or a single road isn’t always the most helpful or accurate thing to do. Instead, think of your career journey as a series of twists and turns — crossroads. 

The crossroads model

It may seem that going up a single career ladder is the norm. In reality, there’s a lot of lateral movement (across sectors and industries), changing locations, or even shifting career paths. In this kind of environment, being flexible and adaptable — constantly redeveloping or reinventing yourself — is the healthiest way to plan your career. 

• The road that beckons : what have you always wanted to try?
• The road that I imagine in my wildest dreams : what do you dream of? 
• The road that seems most sensible to me : the one that people whose opinion I value would suggest to me. 
• The road not travelled : one you have never considered before.
• The road I have already been down.
• The road back : going back to a place you felt safe.

In other words, when we head to a particular destination, we don’t always take the main road. Oftentimes, we find ourselves taking the road less travelled, taking shortcuts by meandering through smaller streets. In other words, don’t be afraid to walk the off-beaten path, after all it may bring you to your goals faster. 

If you find yourself needing additional support thinking about your options or navigating your career, you can always speak to a careers consultant here at LSE Careers. Book a confidential one-to-one appointment on CareerHub .

Note: This blog is the first blog of a two-part blog series from our Career planning in a challenging context event.  

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exploreopts_selfreflection_0.png

Self-reflection will help you identify the things that matter to you most in choosing a career. Try to answer the questions above but remember not to overthink your answers or put yourself under pressure to 'get it right'. Your thoughts and ideas are likely to change in the future. The objective here is just to think about what interests, skills and values matter to you the most now.

• What am I good at? - think about your strengths
• What am I interested in? - think about topics as well as tasks
• What’s important to me? - think about your values

Self-Reflection Toolkit

At any stage in your career thinking, the Self-Reflection Toolkit in Handshake will help you to reflect on past experiences, your skills and motivations in order to move forward in planning your next steps. You can use one or all of these resources at any time and we recommend that you revisit them either termly or annually as part of your career development plan.

My Experiences: Looking backwards to help me move forwards. This activity will help you to look back at the activities and experiences you’ve been involved with so far to start working out what you’d like in a future career.

Self Assessment – Skills audit. This skills audit resource is to help you recognise your skills and which you enjoy using. You can identify skills you need to, or would like to, work on and plan a skills development strategy to achieve your career goals.

Career Interests and Motivation: What’s important to me about work? This activity allows you to identify and prioritise what factors are important to you in your next steps after Cambridge.These ‘work factors’ will be unique to you and may change over time so it’s worth revisiting from time to time

Personality questionnaires

You may also like to try a personality questionnaire. These can help signpost careers you might be suited to and provide a useful starting point. To begin, you must access this through Handshake - see the Profiling for Success resource. Once logged in to Profiling for Success, you will be presented with a list of resources to choose from.

The two questionnaires below are particularly valuable in helping you look for new career ideas:

Read our blog to get inspiration about your career choices. It brings together news, opinions, advice, and perspectives from Cambridge students and graduates.

Use Handshake - join today to explore career options, book an appointment, find jobs and internships, connect with employers, and enhance your network.

Our YouTube channel features videos on topics including finding internships, writing successful CVs, graduate schemes, and virtual careers fairs.

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Introduction

Learning how to capture , reflect on and evidence your experiences and skills will support you in your ongoing development, prepare you for future applications for employment or further study and help you manage your career over your entire working life. This guide provides information and tools to assist you in this.

Reflecting on an experience is a way of evaluating your own reactions and capabilities. It can help you to learn from your experiences, improve your approaches in the future and evidence your skills and strengths to others. It can also boost your confidence and make you feel good about your achievements! Plus it's a great way to impress employers, as Iain Menneer, Chief Executive Officer of Animalcare Group PLC tells us, "Employers are looking for something quite special in a graduate, someone who has gone beyond their studies, is very proactive and can reflect on their experiences."

These resources are aimed at everyone, but will be particularly useful for students who want to do some or all of the following:

• capture their transferable skill learning from work experience, extra curricular activities and academic course content
• prepare for a job or further study application
• apply for the York Award .  

Why reflect?

Employability skills

"Employability skills" is a term you will hear and see often at university. These are the skills that many employers look for when recruiting and a student exhibiting many of these qualities will have an advantage over those who do not. 

You can find out more about the skills, strengths and capabilities sought by employers using the following resources. 

How to reflect

Reflection goes beyond just a description of an event or situation. Simple description doesn’t pose any questions or offer any thoughts on what happened or why.

To reflect on an activity or experience you need to ‘stand back from the event’, ask questions about what happened and offer your thoughts, answers and conclusions. A reflective approach is useful as it will help you to analyse your behaviour (how you approached the task), consider the positives and also the areas to address for improvement in the future.

It is not sufficient simply to have an experience in order to learn. Without reflecting upon this experience it may quickly be forgotten, or its learning potential lost. It is from the feelings and thoughts emerging from this reflection that generalisations or concepts can be generated. And it is generalisations that allow new situations to be tackled effectively. ”

( Gibbs, 1988 )

Many different models and approaches have been suggested for reflection. One approach that can help you structure your reflection is the Gibbs model below:

Reflect on an experience

Reflective writing exercises

Improve your reflective writing skills by having a go at the two exercises below - click on a blue box to start an exercise:

In simple terms, writing can be either descriptive or reflective . Description will not contain any emotional reactions, thoughts on how the presentation went or plans for future improvement. Reflection may fall into one of two categories:

• Conclusion and action plan What did you learn about yourself? What general conclusions did you draw from the experience? Are there any actions you can take right now?

Over the next three screens of this exercise, we'll show you three paragraphs from a piece of reflective writing written by a second year student about their experience of delivering a presentation as part of their course.

It is helpful to reflect on your past behaviours, evaluate your approach and plan positive actions for the future.

• You worked hard to achieve
• Was a challenge (out of your comfort zone)
• Helped to increase your confidence
• What happened?
• How did you feel?
• What did you learn about yourself?
• What might you do differently in a similar situation?

Describing and evidencing your skills, strengths and capabilities

Being able to describe your skills, strengths and capabilities to others, and evidence them with examples, is a really critical skill to develop as it will support you in making applications for work experience or employment, or further study.

You can use the well known 'CAR' model to help you do this. This encourages you to talk about your experiences in a way that is valued by employers. C-A-R stands for Context, Action, Result:

• Context - explain the situation/context briefly 
• Action - describe what you did, how did you go about the task/solve the problem/challenge
• Result - what was the outcome of your actions? How did you or others (e.g. society/group) benefit?

The video below explains this further.

Choose one of your skills, strengths or capabilities, and have a go at answering the questions below. 

You can draw on any example. This could include an example from your academic studies, college life, sports clubs and societies, volunteering, campus events, internships and work experience. Think about examples you might use with an employer as this is good preparation for future job applications/interviews. 

• What was the situation where you demonstrated this strength? (suggest 30-50 words)
• What did you do? What action did you take? How did you use your strength? (suggest  60-80 words)
• What were the results of your actions? How did you feel when using your strengths? What was the impact on you or others? Could you have used your strengths to improve the outcome? What did you learn about yourself and your strengths? (suggest 120-150 words)

Further support

Reflective writing for academic purposes.

You may be also be asked to use reflective writing in your academic studies and assignments. The guide linked below provides a range of guidance and resources to support you. The guide also contains additional resources that you may find useful in preparing for job/further study applications. 

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5 minute read

Unlocking Your Career Potential: 7 Self-Reflection Questions to Ask Yourself

Think you can achieve more career-wise it’s time to do some self-reflection to gain clarity in your professional journey..

In the fast-paced and ever-evolving landscape of the professional world, it’s easy to get caught up in the daily grind without taking a moment to reflect on your career path. Even if you’re currently comfortable at work, or not looking to switch careers any time soon, self-reflection can be a transformative tool, unlocking untapped potential and opening doors to new possibilities you may not be aware of. 

On the other hand, if you’re looking to level up in your career, embarking on this introspective journey helps you to gain the invaluable opportunity to chart your own course, align your passions with your professional pursuits, and ultimately thrive in your chosen field.

All you need to do is to set some time aside and start asking yourself some questions relevant to your professional self. 

Unsure of what to ask yourself? Workipedia by MyCareersFuture has got you covered. Here are ten questions we’ve carefully compiled to help you in your self-reflection process.

Ready to take charge of your career? Polaris is tailored exclusively for you and designed to match your unique aspirations and ambitions. Sign up today!

7 questions to ask yourself

1. what are my strengths.

Identifying your strengths allows you to leverage them to your advantage. Reflect on the skills, qualities, and expertise that set you apart. Assess how you can further develop and showcase these strengths in your current role or explore opportunities to maximise them. 

Consider seeking feedback from colleagues and mentors or even taking assessments to gain a comprehensive understanding of your strengths.

2. What are my areas for improvement?

No one is perfect, and recognising your areas for improvement is crucial for growth. Reflect on the skills or habits you’d like to develop or refine. 

Consider seeking training or mentorship in these areas, setting specific goals, and creating a plan to address them. Embrace a growth mindset and see challenges as opportunities for learning and improvement.

Have a job but want to level up? Achieve career excellence, develop your skills, and expand your knowledge with resources from Career GRIT. Check it out now!

3. Am I investing in my professional development?

Continuous learning is essential for career growth. Reflect on how you invest in your professional development. Consider whether you’re actively seeking new knowledge, attending conferences or workshops, pursuing certifications, or engaging in networking opportunities. 

Assess how to create a learning plan and allocate time and resources to invest in your skills and knowledge.

Read More: Upskilling and Reskilling: Know the Difference and Why They’re Important for Career Resilience

4. Am I on the right career path?

Take a step back and evaluate if your current career path aligns with your long-term goals. Reflect on whether you feel a sense of purpose and fulfilment in your work. Consider your desired lifestyle, work-life balance, and potential growth opportunities. 

If you find yourself disconnected or unfulfilled, explore alternative paths and be open to making changes that align with your aspirations.

5. Am I challenged enough?

Growth often comes from stepping out of your comfort zone and embracing new challenges. Reflect on whether your current role provides opportunities for growth and development. Consider whether you’re being intellectually stimulated and if there’s room to take on additional responsibilities or projects.

Looking for a job? Trying to ace that interview? Subscribe to our Telegram channel for useful career tips, resources and events! 

If you find yourself in a stagnant position, seek out new challenges or consider pursuing professional development opportunities.

Read More: How to Adopt a Growth Mindset for Career Success

6. How do I handle setbacks and failures?

Resilience is a critical skill for success in any career. Reflect on how you handle setbacks, failures, and obstacles. Consider your coping mechanisms, problem-solving skills, and ability to bounce back. 

Assess how you can build your resilience and develop strategies to overcome challenges more effectively. Embrace failure as an opportunity for growth and learning.

7. How do I communicate and collaborate with others?

Strong communication and collaboration skills are essential in today’s interconnected workplace. Reflect on how effectively you communicate your ideas, actively listen, and build relationships with others. 

Consider seeking feedback on your communication style and exploring ways to enhance your interpersonal skills. Look for opportunities to collaborate with diverse teams and build your network.

Career success is not a destination but a journey

Career success is not a destination but a continuous process of learning, adapting, and evolving. You don’t have to self-reflect on your career every day, but at regular intervals – once a year is a good time frame. 

Embrace the power of self-reflection, take deliberate actions, and watch as you unlock new opportunities, fulfilment, and success in your professional life.  

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Self-reflection: a practical guide from career coaches.

In career coaching, we talk a lot about self-reflection.  To know where to take your career, it’s critical to have a strong sense of your goals, strengths, passions, and values.  So:  how can we self-reflect? How can we learn about ourselves? What are some techniques we can use?  What are some questions we can ask ourselves?  What are some resources we can take advantage of?  What can we read?  In this blog, our career coaches offer a range of answers:

Adrienne Howell, Career Coach:

Turn off the “noise” in order to self-reflect.

I think back to when I was in high school and college, when I was truly getting to know myself.  I ask myself if I would have a shallower sense of who I was if I had algorithms that dictated what music I listened to, or if I had to compare myself to others via social media, or if my ADHD would have worsened if I had to constantly text and answer phone calls.  The answer is “yes”.  Therefore, I’ve come up with my own solution called “the back in the day method.”  Start by leaving your phone at home or turning it off once a week, and only answer texts and messages when you get home, like we did back in the day.  You can slowly add days or times.  This way, you aren’t bogged with nonsense and you truly get an understanding for your needs and who you are.

Sean McKelvie, Career Coach:

I think it is crucial to take time to self-reflect in order to understand the path we are on. Students can be elated with the satisfaction of receiving good grades, securing a position with a summer internship and beyond, or simply making new friends or relationships. On the other hand, students might be overwhelmed with their workload or frustrated with classes, lack of opportunities, or not securing a job or internship. I think always asking yourself, “what can I gain from this experience?” is a simple but direct question that can help frame our current circumstance. It is easy to answer this questions when everything is going well, but I would argue that through struggling, and sometimes failing, we are presented with opportunities to learn and grow if we take time to self-reflect.

Alex Barilec, Career Coach: 

Self-reflection is a critical skill to grow, change and adapt. It helps us to become more emotionally intelligent, a better leader and find roles that are a good personal fit so we can be highly effective. The foundation for self-reflection for me was understanding the basics of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, particularly learning about cognitive distortions. This helped me better understand the lens through which I was seeing the world, how it might not be the whole picture or the truth, and then what to do about it. A few of my favorite books on reflection is When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron, The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer and A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. Finally, when you are ready consider working with a professional therapist or coach who is trained in conversational and behavioral techniques to reflectively inquire into how it is you are being in comparison to how you desire to be. This can one of the most powerful and supportive relationships to help you change positively. Here’s a link to some helpful exercises: https://positivepsychology.com/cbt-cognitive-behavioral-therapy-techniques-worksheets/

Nyman Brooks, Career Coach:

I am offering three provocative quotes and one question each that might generate some self-reflection or self-evaluation:

“But yield who will to their separation,

My object in living is to unite

My avocation [what I do for joy] and my vocation [calling, career]

As my two eyes make one in sight.

For only where love and need are one,

And the work is play for mortal stakes,

Is the deed ever really done

For Heaven and the future’s sakes.”   –Robert Frost

Q: To what degree does my calling or career align with what brings me joy? 

“Of actions some aim at what is necessary and useful, and some at what is honorable. And the preference given to one or the other class of actions must necessarily be like the preference given to one or other part of the soul and its actions over the other…”     –Aristotle

Q: Which parts of my soul am I giving to which of my actions and preferences?

“Looking back on my life since I left home, I count myself unusually fortunate that, during more than fifty years of earning a living, almost all the work I have elected to do has consisted of tasks that I would gladly have taken on even if I had had an independent income. If leisure work, as opposed to drudgery, comprises all those activities in which one would engage for reasons of intrinsic reward and without need of extrinsic compensation, then most of my paid employments have been largely leisure pursuits…. In between the extremes of subsistence work that is drudgery and leisure work for which one is paid, there lies a spectrum of occupations in which both aspects of work are found in varying degrees of admixture. My good fortune has been that I have had the opportunity to choose the occupations of my life so that they would be predominantly filled with leisure.”    –Mortimer Adler

Q: Adler uses the word “leisure” to describe activities that enlarge the soul rather than merely as “play” or “relaxation,” as the term is commonly used.  Most of us have jobs that lie somewhere between the extremes of drudgery one hand and leisure on the other. Where does my career fall on that spectrum?

Dan Moseson, Career Coach:

My take on self-reflection is a little bit different.  I typically need to get out of my head and into at least a bit of a “flow” state to reach new insights about myself and my life.  According to psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who first constructed the concept, flow is “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”  I typically reach these states through exercise and creative expression.  Techniques like journaling and meditation have never done nearly as much for me as an intense mountain hike, a whirlwind afternoon photographing lightning, or cranking up my electric guitar for an enthusiastic audience.  As Csikszentmihalyi wrote , “The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times . . . The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”  It’s an odd paradox, but I typically do my best thinking when I’m  not aware of thinking .  This is how I’ve made life-changing discoveries about my need to be creative, physically active, and immersed in nature.  As a side note, I agree strongly with Alex that a good career coach and (a good therapist) can also be extremely helpful in understanding your needs, desires, goals, and skills.

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• v.5(3); 2017 May

Reflections on an academic career

Judith g. hall.

1 Departments of Medical Genetics and Pediatrics, University of British Columbia and BC Children's Hospital Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

There are many undefined aspects to an academic medical career. This article attempts to provide some guidance about things to consider.

As I reflect on my academic career, I recognize several patterns, and some helpful insights emerge. Thus, I thought it might be useful to reflect in general on an academic career in the early 21st century. Mine has been in health sciences, but the concepts are potentially useful to all academic careers. However, the details may not all be applicable to other disciplines. Nevertheless, many of the general comments should be transferable.

I trained in medical/clinical genetics and pediatrics. Because I had been interested in clinical research related to congenital anomalies and nontraditional mechanisms of disease, my laboratory has been the clinic. I have been heavily engaged in medical genetic service delivery and training of clinical genetics fellows. I was head of two clinical genetics units for about 9 years each: one in Seattle, WA and the other in Vancouver, BC. I was the Chair of Pediatrics at the University of British Columbia (UBC) for 10 years. Mandatory retirement was still in effect when I reached the age of 65 years. I actually quite looked forward to retirement because it was possible to plan and set aside many projects to undertake after retirement.

Changing Demographics

When I was born, my life expectancy was 59 years, but over the last 70 years, that has changed, such that my life expectancy is now in the late 80s because I am a woman on the West Coast of Canada. I have become part of the first group of academicians who can anticipate a life span with an extra 30 years. Giving some thought to one's overall career, including the last third, seemed to make sense.

In reflecting on my own experience, it would appear that about one‐third of my life was spent into preparation and training for a career in academic medicine. About one‐third of my life will have been spent “working” within an academic setting. And about one‐third of my life may well be spent utilizing my lifetime of experience in new ways. In other words, academicians today are pioneers of a new type of scholarly life because of the expanded life span. It comes with unique opportunities to utilize their acquired skills.

Trajectory of an Academic Career

Another way to look at the typical academic career is by decades (Figure  1 ). The first 10 years are aimed at very specific training: in my case medical school, residency, fellowship, and other kinds of specific training.

Typical Academic Career by decade.

The second decade of an academic career is primarily spent establishing oneself in a chosen discipline, as well as perhaps within an institution and professional group.

The third decade is really about engaging in the profession, in the local community and in the institution(s) at which one is working.

The fourth decade is about utilizing one's experience: being a mentor, undertaking much more complex situations, providing administration, and introducing new techniques both in education and research. It includes preparing qualified professionals to continue in one's footsteps.

Finally, the last 10 years have been a kind of “winding down” and shifting gears – beginning to think about how to use all of that life experience, as well as pursuing one's heart's desires. Trying to see the “big picture” and prepare for an unpredictable future.

Ten Career Changes Over a Lifetime

Many years ago, I remember hearing that most professionals have multiple career changes over their working life. More recently, there has been the suggestion of as many as 10 career changes are normal. In fact, the younger generation thinks that job changes are viewed as positive in that you have been exposed to a variety of different working worlds, and that is desirable to the employer. I remember when I first heard this that I thought that it would be unlikely for me, but in reflection, I am well aware that one moves from being a student, to a trainee, to a house officer at many different levels, to a fellow, and to a postdoctoral fellow. Once in the academic stream, from an instructor, to an assistant professor, to an associate professor, and full professor. But at the same time, one is an author, a reviewer, an editor, a researcher, and a grant writer. Once you are experienced, you become an adjudicator on committees, advisory boards, granting councils, and editorial boards that oversee the academic industry. Most individuals rise to being Chief of their clinical service or research unit, or, as Assistant Chief, taking on important capacities for their group. Many people become Chairs of Departments, Deans, or Head of institutions. None of that reflects their other more personal roles of being a wife/husband, mother/father, daughter/son, grandparent, household executive (housewife) and being engaged in many different ways in one's community.

Learn the System at Your Place

There are three important systems to learn about, which are unique to the situation: (1) organizations (the organizational chart – who reports to who); (2) the kinds of resources available; and (3) how to get feedback and evaluation.

It is important to understand the organization at “your place.” This means the hospital, the research institute, the medical school, the university, and the community to which you belong. Understanding the systems and the rules (written and unwritten) of each system is really important to avoid conflict, to make regular progress in one's career, and to network between systems.

It is also important to understand what kinds of resources are available, whether they are automatic or competitive. What the range of available resources is – from information sharing, the availability of clinic time, access to trainees, travel money, etc.

The third major area that you want to learn about is how to get, and how often to get, feedback or evaluation. There will be someone to whom you report. They will have a boss and they are responsible for reporting about your performance. You need to make yearly written reports about the variety of your activities (at the same time as you update your CV).

You want to explore what types of additional opportunities are available within your institution: electives, grants, rotations, sabbaticals, exchanges, and awards (including monetary awards) so that you can take advantage of those in which you are interested or which will further what you are working on at the time.

As your career develops, there will be different expectations, both related to your level of expertise, publications, reports, and record, but usually there is the expectation that you should receive grants for support of your research.

It is worth understanding the relationships and obligations between students, trainees, house staff, and faculty or superiors, as well as the medical and research organizations around you. How do you get involved? Which are automatic and which are honorary? And what kinds of commitments do they require? How do you get nominated or apply?

Finally, there are differences between being in a small or large city, as well as being part of a small or large organization. Both provides opportunities, but can also confine your options. Thus, it is important to learn about the system in your unique situation – its advantages and limitations. This means that you have many opportunities available to you that you should make yourself aware of and may wish to pursue.

Choosing a variety of institutions at which to get your training provides a broader set of experiences to draw from later in your career. Professionals from all those experiences will become your colleagues, future resources, and collaborators.

No Single Way

The more experience and exposure you have, the more you realize there is not a single model and not a single way to do things. Furthermore, each person is a unique individual so working out their own pattern, thinking about it, planning it, and trying different things out, is important.

The Training Decade – First Decade

It goes without saying that choosing a place to train has lifelong ramifications, but perhaps the most important thing about your training experience is that you enjoy yourself and the people around you. I always learned the most from my co‐trainees as a medical student, as a house staff officer, as a fellow, and as a young faculty member. You want to identify all the special opportunities at your institution as compared with others places and take advantage of those from which you will benefit. However, you want to remain flexible and keep your options open so that you do not get into limited areas where there are few options. Meanwhile, you also want to be developing some type(s) of special expertise in a particular area so you become useful because of your knowledge (Figure  1 ).

There is an enormous role for serendipity – that is, finding something good without really looking for it. It comes from having a positive attitude and keeping your eyes open; learning from your mistakes and being willing to try new things (Hall 2003 ).

As you finish medical school or Ph.D training and head toward other training such as house staff and fellowships, it is important to do your homework – to look at the various advantages of the various places where you might train.

How many applications should you make? You always want to have a back up, but you want to be aiming for a place that fills your expectations – whether it is fantastic patient experience, a prestigious place to be from, or the best training you can possibly get.

You will almost surely go for an interview. Remember that you are actually interviewing that place to see if it is a place you want to go. Clearly, you want to think about the questions that you will be asked ahead of time and have sensible answers. They will want to know if you will fit in to their organization. You also want to have a set of your own questions that will help you decide if the organization is the right place for you.

Your curriculum during training

You want to make sure that there are didactic components to your training, such as clinical rounds, journal club, unknown sessions, laboratory rotations, and technical training. You will be learning a great deal from the other trainees and so being in a situation where there are many other trainees is to your advantage. You want both clinical and laboratory experiences no matter where you are headed. If you are headed toward being a clinical researcher, you want to know what laboratory work involves, and how reliable it is. If you are headed toward a laboratory research career, you want to know what it takes to be a clinician and how you can collaborate with them. Either way, you want to learn how to collaborate and how to make agreements ahead of time to make collaborations work well.

How many years of postdoctoral training are you expecting?

The usual is 3 to 4 years, but every additional year will almost surely provide you with some additional insights, techniques, or approaches that will be valuable. In many clinical programs, there will be documentation of your clinical experiences, and perhaps exams that reflect that you have conquered a certain amount of didactic material. It is useful to take as many examinations as possible, not only for the experience but also to have multiple certifications and initials after your name! All those letters after your name do make a difference at some point and you certainly do not want to have to go back later and take examinations.

There is a great deal of emphasis on finding the right mentor these days, but in fact you want different mentors for different things, at different times in your life, and for the different parts of your life. The person who models a great clinician may be very different from the person who models work/life balance. When you ask someone for their advice, they are usually quite flattered and they will then want to know how things have turned out. You can overdo it of course, but having different mentors for different parts of your life actually makes sense because no one person can do everything well. I also think it goes both ways. It helps that individual to know their advice was useful or that you have made a different decision than they suggested.

Part of your primary mentor/advisor's job is to look after your professional development. They should ask you to send in abstracts to various types of meetings, ask you to compete for various prizes, ask you to attend a variety of meetings – because those are all part of your professional development. And they should be nominating you for prizes and prestigious memberships.

You are actually doing something of an apprenticeship with your mentor. You are watching how they carry on their professional life. Because you may admire different aspects of different people, you may have several models for different parts of your professional life.

During your career development, you need to look after developing your CV (curriculum vitae) and document your various experiences carefully. You need to submit abstracts for meetings, you need to make some presentations at meetings, and you need to learn how to make good posters (because it may be your first introduction to your future colleagues). You can gain experience at your home institution during its annual research day and then go for regional or national meetings, and eventually international meetings. You need to get the experience of writing papers, and the many drafts that a good paper requires. You need to learn to select the right journal for your paper, respond to critiques, revise, and all the technical headaches of submission. Finally, you may actually have to ask to be considered for prizes such as the best poster, the best oral presentation, the best fellow, etc. – it does not necessarily happen spontaneously – you have to be nominated.

Writing papers is never easy, but it is a sign of an academician; and therefore, significant thought needs to be given as to how to organize the paper, whether you write one or two papers, which journal to consider, what the impact factors are, and whether that really matters. You need to look at articles in the journal to which you are submitting and make sure your article fits. Perhaps the best learning experience is when you fail. Reflect on why, what the comments of the editors were, if it is possible to redeem or rewrite the paper, or if you have clearly presented your research.

Establishing Yourself – Second Decade

“Which job is really your first job?” can be an interesting question. As you move from being a postdoctoral fellow to an instructor, you need to give some thought to “the job.” You probably will be having an interview whether you stay at the same place or move. There needs to be an interview so you can understand what the expectations will be: how much time the clinic service will take, what your teaching assignments will be, how much preparation each will take, etc. Then you need to think about your research: what will be expected, number of grants and/or publications. Be realistic about what you can accomplish because you will be expected to be productive.

When you are choosing that first job, you want to be sure that you will be at a place where there are others with whom you will enjoy working; therefore, you actually need to be interviewing future colleagues and finding out what their expectations of you will be. You will need to have references (people who know you and your work), probably several, that say you are capable of the job you are taking on. So think about having different references for different things. Who are the right people from your past?

You will be expected to make some type of presentation if you go for an interview, so you might as well get together a good presentation “for the road.”

Wherever you go, you want to get an academic appointment so that you can be upwardly mobile. You need to learn the difference between clinical track and tenure track and what the expectations of those different tracks are. You also want to find out what kinds of other perks are available – whether you have to apply for them, ask for them, or whether they come automatically.

Questions that need to be answered in any job interview include the amount of salary, benefits, and retirement plan, but you may want to ask about that last. During an interview, you expect the institution to be competitive; and therefore, you need to know about other places. You need to know whether your income is guaranteed and for how long. Of course you want to know what kind of office and laboratory space are available to you. You want to know about resources such as IT, library, parking, travel money, (even football tickets), etc. You want to know whether or not laboratory costs for offsite testing are covered; whether publication, poster, and travel costs to meetings will be covered; you want to do some teaching because you want access to students, but you do not want it to be something that takes all of your time. So you need to be quite clear about teaching responsibilities and opportunities. Finally, you want there to be reasonable expectations in terms of numbers of patients, numbers of papers, numbers of grants, number of lectures, etc.

Before you arrive at your new job, you can think about the grants that you can put together ahead of arrival. You can prepare some lectures and think about other scholarly contributions you will be wanting to make during the first year. You need to learn about the system at your new institution and to whom you will report. And then there are the practical things that need to be ongoing: housing, bank account, child care, etc.

You do want some visibility once you arrive because you do want people to know who you are, who you could work with, and how you get trainees to work with you. You want to make a presentation at Grand Rounds or the research institute in your first year. You want the opportunity of student teaching. You want to be on some committees so you can meet people.

Committees: The rule of three

It is important to be on committees as one of the responsibilities of being a member of the institution to which you are going. The Rule of Three means that you are on three committees: one related to your profession, one related to your institution, and one related to your community. For instance, within your local pediatric society, you want to get on one of the committees such as program, social issues, government policy, etc. Within your institution, both the university/medical school and the hospital/clinic, you want to get onto committees so you learn how their systems work. Finally, you want to be part of your community, city, or region. It may be on a foundation, the YWCA/YMCA, a community center, or your block organization. This is in order to meet neighbors, and understand the unspoken rules.

The Rule of Three is that you stay on the three committees for 3 years, and then either become Chair or go onto three other committees. You only become Chair if there is something you want to accomplish, not just because nobody else will be Chair, and then you will only stay Chair for only 3 years.

The Rule of Three is really to enable you to learn how systems work, to make a contribution, to meet other people, and to feel that you are becoming “part of things.” Every one of the committees will be a worthwhile experience, but can become tedious or too time consuming if you stay more than 3 years.

The academic stool

I had always heard that the academic stool had three legs: education, research, and service (clinical for an MD, free tests for a laboratory person). People are often described as triple threats: that is to say that they are superb in all three areas. However, the reality is that the academic stool really has four legs because administration is one of the most important aspects of academia. No department or institution will function without good administration.

As you are establishing yourself in academia, you must continue to further your knowledge and demonstrate excellence (but not in all four areas). You probably already know in which areas you excel. In some ways, that is easy because in all four areas, one can do research, be innovative, and publish findings. The interesting part is that you are frequently doing three or four things at the same time. So if you are in clinic, you are usually seeing a patient, teaching a student and having that patient be part of an ongoing research project that you are undertaking. If you are in academics, you almost always have students/trainees around, while you are doing work. However, the really important aspect is that if you are in academics, you should be furthering knowledge as well as demonstrating and modeling excellence. Otherwise you should not be there, you should be in private practice or in a business.

Promotion – rule of four

Within the academic world, one is expected to be “productive” and sometimes that seems quite impossible. It is not really “publish or perish” – there is an obligation to advance knowledge. Yet, there is a helpful rule of four. If you publish four papers a year, you cannot not be promoted. Publications are part of the prerequisite for promotion. That sounds a bit like a heretic statement because we know that the journals you publish in make a difference. However, if you get organized, you will almost surely publish more than four papers a year. One paper will be a case report together with a student in which he/she can gain experience and you act as their mentor. A second paper could be a review of the literature and a series, either a clinical series or laboratory series, done by a resident or fellow, in which they get the experience of putting a paper (and possibly a poster) together, and you are acting as their supervisor. The third paper is from your own research, which is the area that you are working on, right at that time, where you are primary author. The fourth paper is a collaboration: if you are clinician, in collaboration with a basic scientist; if you are a basic scientist, in collaboration with a clinician. Four papers a year, year after year, gets you promoted!

Keeping lists

The reality is that you are usually doing several projects at once and you need to keep a list of possible ongoing or new projects: the ones you are involved in and the ones that are the next logical steps. So when a trainee comes along, you have “ready” projects to suggest and they are at the right level. Obviously, you have to redo your list every year.

It is important to sit down once a year and take stock. Usually, this should be a fairly formal exercise for yourself where you take the day off and go off by yourself to a quiet place. It can be on or near your birthday, on or near the 1st of the year, or on or near the beginning of a fall term. At that time, you update your CV, and you make or update the list of your projects and interests. You set some goals for the next year. You review last year's goals and see what you have accomplished. Every year you will find that you probably accomplished about half of the things you planned to do. The other half drop by the way, but you picked up three or four new things that are every bit as exciting. After you have gone through the review and assessment and updated your CV, you make a list for the next year. Then, you make a “report” to your “boss” or maybe you have several “bosses.” It is important to touch bases yearly (or even more often) in a formal way with the person to whom you report and who is actually responsible for your career development. Let them know what you have accomplished. You can do these in writing or at a meeting, but you keep the list from year to year so you can observe your progress and new areas of interest.

Your promotion relates to all four areas of the academic stool and you should list the accomplishments in each of those four areas when you redo your CV on a separate sheet (some, of course, overlap the legs of the academic stool). There are some unwritten rules about promotion that I have observed over the years. For an Instructor, teaching critiques are really important, but publishing is essential to move from Instructor to Assistant Professor. Usually, it requires five to ten peer reviewed papers. Chapters do not count – which is disappointing because they are a wonderful experience. Reviewing information, finding unique areas of interest, and becoming an expert of a particular area are very useful, but chapters do not count for promotion. Promotion is really based on successful research, presentations at national meetings, and recognition from one's peers. Promotion to Associate Professor usually requires 20–25 peer‐reviewed papers, often acceptance into an honorary group, and presentations at international meetings. Promotion to Full Professor, require 60–70 peer‐reviewed papers and possibly a book. Twenty of those papers should be first or senior author. One must be known internationally within your profession's specialty group and have made significant contributions to the institution, the profession, and/or the community in which you are involved.

The Third Decade

The Third Decade involves establishing oneself and being truly engaged in the profession, the community, and the institutions that are appropriate for your work.

Change can be a verb, noun, or an adjective, but it is inevitable as “death and taxes.” It is part of being a living organism, and is part of any organization or job. Medicine, biomedical research and in my case, human medical genetics, have changed enormously and will continue to change over a career.

When I entered medical school and was being oriented, the Dean said that “only 10% of what you learn over the next 4 years of medical school will be true in 10 years. However, we are not sure which 10% it is!” It is absolutely essential to keep up with the changes. It can be frustrating and exciting.

There are usually opportunities as change occurs. It is important to keep a positive attitude and to be flexible as the times change. In “Composing a Life,” Mary Catherine Bateson Bateson ( 2010 ) talks about the need for being “extemporaneous” – responding to the situation, to continually redefine who you are and what your job is. One must expect discontinuities and to “roll with the punches” in order to make the changes, which are sure to occur, meaningful. Holding on to the past is futile!

Get a life and keep a life

It is really hard to keep a work‐life balance. One of the ways to do it is to be sure to take an hour a week, time on every trip, and a day in every year for reflection – to have time for yourself, to think about yourself, your family, your friends, and your job, and to rebalance.

Sabbaticals – The Sabbath – every 7 years

I am convinced that the ancients who invented a Sabbath and sabbaticals were right. Every 7 years, every single molecule in your body turns over. Your body's cells may remain, but there is change going on everywhere. It is important to take time for reflection and to get new skills and new perspectives at regular intervals. Sabbaticals are a time to think and learn and reflect. During a sabbatical, it is important to get rid of all routine activities; to expose yourself to new ideas, new routines, and new ways of thinking; and to not actually have specific tasks or projects. Although usually you have to write a précis of what you are planning to do during a sabbatical, you do not actually have to do it! It is best to go away for a sabbatical, but actually the important part is just getting away for the first month or possibly first 3 months so that people are not expecting you to be there or depending on you.

It takes at least 2 years to plan a sabbatical. You have to find the right place, decide what you want to learn about, and get permission from your institution/department. Financing becomes an issue depending on what your institutional support is. If you are going out of country, you need to set up a bank account and a credit card in the new country. Your sponsor will help you arrange housing (and schooling if children are coming with you). Once you “arrive,” it takes at least 3 months to stop thinking about the “old stuff” (I remember on one of my sabbaticals to Oxford in 1988–1989 that I realized I was still dreaming about things back in Vancouver for the first 3 months). You are trying to clear your brain and reflect on new things.

There is often a difference between how medicine and science approach the unknowns, although both take a scientific approach and both require asking the right questions in order to lead to changes in understanding and challenging the old ways of thinking. They require posing propositions/hypotheses and trying to answer them. When I was going through medical school, we really only thought in terms of objective data: make a hypothesis and collected the unbiased data to prove it. More recently, health researchers have developed methodologies that engage various types of subjective approaches as well. There are also those approaches where you engage the subjects in making the hypothesis (participatory research). Figure  2 compares clinicians and basic researchers. There is some truth to the comparison and the differences in approach; however, the best science is interdisciplinary. Clinicians deal with patients at the bedside, apply what is known, and make diagnoses. Basic scientists are hypothesis driven, trying to discover what is not known, and dealing with basic issues.

Comparison of Clinicians and Basic Scientists.

Women professionals

The recent data is fairly remarkable about the number of women who are now in medicine and getting PhDs ( UBC Association of Professors Emeriti ). When I was a medical student, there were only five of us in a class of 75. Now 50% of medical students are women and this will probably change the profession. However, medicine is a natural profession for women to go into since it is related to caring and helping. However, only 10–15% of women are in administrative roles, although it is way past time for there to be many more (Hall 2005 ; Bateson 2010 ). One of the questions is why more women do not take up leadership roles. Probably, one of the major reasons is that the professional world has been built for males and it is extremely patriarchal in its approach. Secular work has been built on a model of competition, hierarchy, being completely engaged, and having a caretaker at home who takes care of the “home front.” But the “times are changing,” and real people are engaging in real professions and having real lives. Women often have a somewhat different approach (Figure  3 ) to science and medicine. They tend to be more collaborative and do multi‐disciplinary projects working in teams and networks. They tend to be nurturing and mentoring those around them, interested in ethical issues, and socialization. They often use a different language, take a subjective and holistic approach, care about the environments in which they work, and choose different topics for study than men might (which, in the past, have not been funded well).

Frequent Characteristics of Women in Science.

My own view is that men's and women's approaches are complementary and biologically based. “Out of Africa” occurred only about 60,000 years ago and that means that our basic biology has not changed much. We are still very much governed by social mores which again, in almost every society, have been patriarchal, reinforcing the hunter‐gatherer male who is a warrior and a hunter, while women's role was raising children, socializing them, and providing food and homes. I recently heard a great quote having to do with when the men and women enter a room already filled with conversing people. The men are looking out for the alpha male to find out what is going on and whether he can be more alpha. The women go into the room looking for friends they know, networking and collaborating. I think it is important to keep those qualities in mind during an academic professional life. They are not at odds, but are actually quite complementary.

You have chosen a stressful profession if you are in academic medicine and it is important to have ways to relieve that stress, but to also thrive on it. Some stress actually builds resiliency. It is important to learn from mistakes and move on. Challenges are often invigorating, but to put up with the stress, you have to have determination. It is called “fire in the belly”; the challenges and questions you are dealing with are so exciting that you cannot help, but propel yourself forward!

The five goods

When I was in medical school, there was a female professor of pathology who took the five female students aside and said that we could come to her with questions. She said there were five things that helped her to continue to have a professional life. She called them the “five goods”:

• Good organization – that is, you have to be an organized person with “to do” lists updated on a daily basis.
• You have to have good help – you cannot possibly have a full professional life and be a full‐time housekeeper. I was fortunate enough to have a full‐time live‐in housekeeper from the time I had my first child in medical school. It just does not make sense to try to come home and do all things that need doing around a home after a day of work in the laboratory or the hospital. I wanted to come home and be with my children, but having a housekeeper does mean giving up a certain amount of control, valuing their help, paying them well, and letting them know how much they are appreciated.
• A good partner or good friends for support – you will need people who really appreciate what you are trying to accomplish and with whom you can talk, let off steam and listen to their suggestions.
• Good Health – that means both taking care of your health, but also being fortunate enough to have good health. The selection process that gets you to medical school suggests that you will have to have had good health, but that means maintaining it.
• Last, but not least, is good luck – actually it is good fortune. Taking advantage of situations and making the most of them. Not encountering true disasters that throw you off your feet. You build your good fortune, in taking care of small problems, taking an optimistic/positive approach, reflecting regularly, and calling on those around you to make the situation work.

The Fourth Decade

The Fourth Decade of an academic health sciences worker involves using your unique skills and the things that have brought you to your present situation and applying them to even more complicated situations. It means dealing with complexity and finding principles on which to interact. It means being innovative and finding new ways to meet the changing times. It means taking on some administration, either in your department, your institution, or your profession. It means extending your collaborations. It is an exciting time – that fourth decade. In this day and age, it means knowledge transfer, learning from situations, identifying principles, sharing them, and continuing to reflect and revise. This is the decade where you make your unique contributions, where you innovate, where you deal with complexity.

The Fifth Decade

The Fifth Decade is one of winding down, shifting gears, the pursuing of your “heart's desire,” and starting to plan for retirement. Do we ever retire? I do not think so, but we need to do some planning for elder years, save money to live off of in a socially responsible way, and to find a replacement for ourselves (Graham et al. 1992 ; Vaillant 2002 ; Hall 2013 ; Spector et al. 2014 ).

We have done a study of what happens in academia (Hall 2003 ) and it turns out that one‐third of people retire the way our parents did – engaging in community and family, one‐third continue their scholarly academic pursuits, and one‐third take their skills and use them elsewhere in a different work setting with potentially a different work style and pace. In pediatrics, 45% of pediatricians continue to provide patient care after the age of 65. More men continue in traditional work styles, but the real principle is we need to find ways to help senior academicians plan for the later trajectory of their career because they probably have a good 30 years after their “retirement.”

My own experience was that when I became Chair of Pediatrics, 15 years before my own mandatory retirement, there were five people who would be retiring in the next year. I met with each of them and three of them were angry that they were forced to retire.

These three department members did not want to retire, but both the hospital and the university insisted on it, so they were unhappy. One other individual had planned very carefully. He came in and asked if the Department could type the last draft of the 35 papers he planned to write (there were no computers in those days). In fact, he did go off and write many of those, but he also took up painting at which he became very good. The fifth person (I know he would not mind my telling) had been a previous Chair of Pediatrics. He kept asking how he could be helpful. I finally suggested that he should write the history of the Department. He went off in a scholarly research mode and produced a magnificent book, and then went on to write several other historical books about the individuals at the university. He found his unique retirement niche.

In the present age of no mandatory retirement, it is actually quite a challenge to figure out when to retire . I found mandatory retirement helpful because you did not have to “lose face” and if you planned properly then you could do the things you wanted to after you stopped being paid.

All of that experience with retirees gave me pause, and I realize that senior academicians are actually an untapped resource. Their human capital has not been available in the past because of shorter life expectancy. So we should find new ways to use them. As a leader or Chair, it is important to think creatively about the unique talents of a specific individual. Starting at about age 55, faculty members need to think about their “last third” and the unique contributions they can make. However, this also requires flexibility and creativity within the ever challenging systems of academia and healthcare system, as well as the requirements of your university, research institution, and hospital, to use such people in the best ways.

An important question is whether one needs to be paid in “retirement.” There is a general feeling that you should not be doing the same thing you were paid to do without being paid. I actually think that this a patriarchal masculine view because if you plan properly, you will have plenty of income in “retirement” and you should be able to do whatever you want and not need to be paid. However, as times change, it is an important question about whether there is a tax incentive, a financial model for reimbursement for ongoing scholarly activities that allows one to continue to have appropriate income.

Retiring is actually complex (Graham et al. 1992 ; Hall 2005 ). You need to start to plan at least 10 years prior. In the old days this would have been at age 55. The tax laws make it appropriate to start to plan for sure at 60 and you need to have saved enough money to support your longer life span. A succession plan is one of the real responsibilities of academicians – be sure there is someone who is properly trained who can take over and see the “big picture” in your area. With regard to medical liability, you have to save your records for 21 years, and so some thought needs to be given to those records.

There are many things that change with “retirement” and you need to prepare for it (Vaillant 2002 ). The saddest people are those who have not developed a “life” outside of work. Because actually, social contacts, friends, family, and community become extremely important and keep one healthy. Health is a real issue and there are a bunch of common ailments for older adults, but maintaining good health requires systematically being careful about diet, exercise, and challenging intellectual pursuits. These are essential to maintain your health in order to age well.

There are a variety of new technologies and it is important to keep up with those if you expect to function in the mainstream. It is important to maintain contact, either through an emeritus group or an advisory role, with your institutions and with others in your profession. You may have the opportunity to have input into the institutions you love, both by donations of time and money. Being on various councils and advisory groups is fun and very useful because of experience and “institutional memory.” This will be a bit like the advice to those starting out: it is worth being on three committees for at least 3 years, but also to give up and rotate those committees so that you are not obstructing development. Your lifestyle will change as you retire and age, and so will your schedule.

The major commitment I made to retirement was that I would go for walk, have a good cup of coffee, read the paper, and do the Sudoku before I began any other work.

It is useful to think of the “retirement career” as a trajectory in 5 or 10 year cycles (Graham et al. 1992 ). As I have completed my first postretirement decade, I have celebrated it by taking a sabbatical from manuscript writing and invited presentations for a year. I now spend more time on research, travel, and on reflection. It is sort of a joke to say you take a “sabbatical from retirement”, but that is just exactly what I have done. Each academician will find their own way. And we have much to learn about the full trajectory of an academic career.

Conflict of Interest

None declared.

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge Kenjiro Kosaki, Margot Walker, Rashid Sumaila, Amy Ho, and Kimi Tanaka for their encouragement and help and Maximilian Muenke for his article (Muenke 2016 ) that inspired me.

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MINI REVIEW article

Career construction theory: tools, interventions, and future trends.

• School of Education, Huainan Normal University, Huainan, China

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.

Introduction

Career counseling has changed from career guidance and career education to career counseling. In the 19th century, career counseling was centered on the matching career guidance model, which is making rational decisions based on self and career information. After entering the 20th century, career counseling is based on career development theory, focusing on how individuals make decisions, a process-oriented career intervention. Furthermore, beginning in the 21st century, career counseling centers on career construction theory, focusing on vocational personality, career adaptability, and life theme, emphasizing constructing careers. These three theoretical models are the career guidance model to determine the person-job match, career education to promote career development, and career counseling to design work-life.

Career construction theory

Savickas (2005) proposed the career construction theory based on personal constructivism, social constructionism, and post-modernity. Career construction theory believes that the essence of individual career development is the dynamic construction process of pursuing mutual adaptation between the subjective self and the external objective world, and different people construct different stories. Career construction theory provides a dynamic perspective to give personal meaning to memories, present experiences, and plans, constructing careers through a sense of meaning and clarifying future directions. The theory includes three parts: vocational personality, career adaptability, and life theme. Occupational personality refers to an individual’s career-related abilities, needs, values, and interests. Career adaptability is described as “a psychosocial construct that denotes an individual’s resources for coping with current and imminent vocational development tasks, transitions, traumas” ( Savickas and Porfeli, 2012 , p. 662). The difference between occupational personality and career adaptability is that occupational personality emphasizes the content of a career, while career adaptability emphasizes the coping process of constructing a career. Career adaptability deals with how individuals construct careers, while occupational personality deals with what careers they construct. Career adaptability deals with how individuals construct their careers, while occupational personality deals with what careers they construct. Unlike vocational personality and career adaptability, life theme is a dynamical system that primarily explains why individuals make career choices and the significance of those choices and expresses the uniqueness of the individual in a particular context, which provides a way of looking at the world. Career counseling, developed from career construction theory, focuses on vocational personality, career adaptability, and constructing meaning in life themes ( Savickas, 2013 ). Vocational personality focuses on the “what,” career adaptability is about the “how,” and life theme responds to the “why” ( Guan and Li, 2015 ).

Compared to other career theories, career construction theory helps students adapt to the future’s complex and changing career world and inspires a richer perspective on career development ( Gao and Qiao, 2022 ). Meta-analysis has shown that social construction theory is more effective than individual-environmental matching theory ( Langher et al., 2018 ). Career construction theory seeks to explain the interpersonal process in which individuals construct the self, establish the direction of career behavior, and assign meaning to careers, providing a unique perspective on how to view the subject of career counseling ( Hou et al., 2014 ). Career construction theory provides specific ideas to help the case make career decisions and enhance work satisfaction ( Savickas, 2005 ). Therefore, this review aims to introduce the tools, interventions, and future directions of career construction theory to help individuals better adapt to the rapidly evolving situation.

To ensure the quality of the literature, the terms “career construction” and “intervention” were used as search terms in this study, both of which appeared in the title, abstract, or keywords. A comprehensive search was conducted on the “Web of Science, PsycINFO, and EBSCO.” The search was limited to English-language articles. Specifically, the literature was searched from 2013 to 2023. In addition, only standard research papers were included in this study, excluding review-type articles.

Life design counseling

Life design counseling is based on career construct theory, which gives meaning to life and supports adaptive responses by helping the individual to tell a career story, constructing the past, present, and future to form continuity and consistency. The five assumptions of the life design model of vocational intervention are contextual possibilities, dynamic processes, non-linear progression, multiple perspectives, and personal patterns. Life design counseling is lifelong, holistic, contextual, and preventive. It aims to increase the client’s adaptability, narratability, and activism ( Savickas et al., 2009 ).

The life design paradigm relies on story construction and action. The first stage of life design counseling is constructive, which involves clarifying the problem and what one hopes to achieve through counseling. The counselor encourages the client to find the life theme by describing the problem to be solved through a story. The second is deconstruction, which helps the client reflect on and shape the story by allowing them to clearly express experiences, expectations, actions, and expectations for the future. The third stage is reconstruction. The counselor and the client can interpret the story from different perspectives, thus enabling the client to rewrite his or her story. The fourth is the co-construction stage. The issues raised by the client are put into the rewritten story, and a new story is co-constructed as a solution. The fifth stage is action. Assign participation in some of the narrative’s possible self-relevant activities. It is necessary to specify what they will do and what this means to help the client make a plan ( Savickas et al., 2009 ).

Career construction interview

The Career Construction Interview is a structured process based on life design counseling designed to help clients tell, hear, and enact their life career stories. Counselors help them to coherently tell their career story, cope with changes in the environment, design a meaningful life, and take action by conducting a qualitative career assessment with a narrative model and methodology. The career construction interview comprises five questions, each leading to a thematic story. Role Models are to identify adjectives that describe self-constructs and concepts. Favorite magazines/TV/websites are to identify the types of environments and activities that interest the client. Favorite stories are understanding the stories or cultural scripts the client might use to envision transformational outcomes. Favorite mottos can give the client some advice. Early recollections can provide insight into how the client perceives the issues presented in the transition narrative ( Savickas, 2011 ).

At the beginning of the second phase, the counselor draws a portrait of life-occupation based on the client’s answers to CCI questions, combined with observation and reflection. By reviewing the story together and encouraging reflection and reflexivity in the conversation, the counselor and client construct a powerful new life-career identity that has coherent meaning for the client’s life. In the third phase, the client develops an action plan with the counselor. The career interest results obtained from the CCI correlate moderately with the quantitative Career Interest Inventory results, which suggests that the CCI agrees with traditional quantitative assessment tools ( Barclay and Wolff, 2012 ). Barclay (2018) provided three additional ways to use the CCI: written exercises, career collages, and career portfolios. Lindo and Ceballos (2019) developed the Child and Adolescent Career Construction, which includes the development of appropriate expressive arts to promote self-expression and career exploration in children ages nine and older. The CACCI includes a socio-emotional focus that encourages clients to explore self-concepts, life themes, and career awareness.

My Career Story

“My Career Story” is a career autobiographical workbook developed based on the Life Design Paradigm and contains written exercises and goal-setting activities essential to successful career planning ( Brown and Ryan Krane, 2000 ). It corresponds to the construction, deconstruction, reconstruction, co-construction, and action of life design counseling ( Hartung and Santilli, 2017 ).

MCS is designed to help clients tell, hear, and enact their life-career stories about who they are, who they want to be in the world of work, and how they can connect themselves to careers they might enjoy. Individuals, groups, and educators can use MCS to guide self-reflection to increase narrative identity, intentionality, and adaptability in career planning, career choice, and work adjustment. The MCS workbook consists of three sections to guide clients in telling their life stories. The first section, “Telling My Story,” begins by defining the participant’s problem, listing the careers they have considered pursuing and how they would like the workbook to benefit them. Next, participants answered questions related to life-career topics: (1) role models they admired while growing up, (2) favorite magazines and television shows, (3) stories from favorite books or movies, (4) favorite mottos. The second part is “Listening to My Story.” Portrait their lives by integrating smaller stories into a more cohesive career story. Including (1) Who will I be? (2) Where do I like to be? (3) The portrait summarizes (4) Rewrite my story. The third section, “Enacting My Story,” involves creating a realistic plan to implement the story ( Santilli et al., 2019 ). The MCS can be used by clients alone or with the counselor’s assistance. As an adjunct to career counseling, the MCS can be used in one-on-one individual and group counseling and career development learning activities in the classroom or other settings ( Hartung and Santilli, 2017 ).

Career intervention

Twenty-two studies published between 2013 and 2023 met all criteria and provided the necessary data for the systematic review. Databases included Web of Science, PsycINFO, and EBSCO. Two authors screened all titles and abstracts. In addition, they considered the eligibility of full-text articles. First, the databases were searched with the keywords “career construct theory” and “intervention.” Furthermore, a citation search was conducted for key papers, and reference checking was performed as suggested by Tuttle et al. (2009) . Thus, the search strategy was iterative and multi-stage, including computerized and manual searches. Therefore, it can be concluded that these searches were adequate for a systematic review. Finally, 22 studies were identified, including three qualitative and 19 quantitative studies. The two authors evaluated these studies against the selection criteria and agreed on the final 22 studies. Figure 1 depicts the process of selection.

Figure 1 . PRISMA flow chart.

These studies review intervention research on career construction theory, as shown in Table 1 .

Table 1 . Intervention studies.

Career group

Career Group is based on group counseling theory and can promote the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects of an individual’s career development. Career group guidance and career group counseling are two forms of career groups. The difference is that career group guidance has more participants and focuses on transferring knowledge. Career counseling has fewer members and emphasizes interaction and communication between members ( Jin, 2007 ).

Researchers examined the effects of life design group guidance on 9th grade. Findings supported the effects of life design group guidance on career identity, career adaptability, and career decision-making self-efficacy ( Cardoso et al., 2022 ). Maree (2019) used quantitative and qualitative research methods to conduct group career construct counseling with 11th-grade students. The Career Adaptability Scale was used for quantitative analysis. Career interest analysis and Maree Career Matrix were used for qualitative intervention. The findings revealed that students significantly improved career adaptability. Maree et al. (2019) explored the impact of life design group counseling on unemployed young adults’ career adaptability. First, the Career Interest Profile was used to obtain information about career choices: work-related information, five most and least preferred career preferences, six career choice questions, and 15 career story narrative questions. Career counseling techniques such as career genealogy charts, interviews, and personal statements were used. Results indicated that life design group counseling increased participants’ career adaptability.

Recently, Gai et al. (2022) used career construct theory to develop a peer motivational interview that included engagement, focus, arousal, and planning. The research involved senior students conducting one-on-one career motivational interviews with junior students. Results indicated that the intervention increased students’ career control and career confidence. Cook and Maree (2016) compared the effects of career construction group counseling and a life-oriented curriculum on 11th-grade students in different educational settings. The group counseling included Collage, the Career Interest Profile, and the lifeline technique. Participants demonstrated higher career adaptability after participating in career construction group counseling. Maree et al. (2017) used career construction group counseling. The experimental group completed narrative questions in the Career Interest Profile. They created career collages depicting how they see their future. In addition, “My Lifeline” was drawn to mark essential themes in their lives. The quantitative study results indicated that life design group counseling did not increase participants’ career adaptability compared to the traditional program.

Seminar is another form of group counseling. Seminars are less frequent and intensive than group counseling, with more fixed topics and less interaction between members, making them an efficient method ( Jin, 2007 ).

Life design counseling can reduce indecision, anxiety, uncertainty, and insecurity among college students ( Obi, 2015 ). Maree and Symington (2015) designed eight life design workshops with five 11th-grade students in a private school. The students demonstrated increased effort to address issues related to career concern, control, curiosity, and confidence, suggesting that the intervention facilitated the development of their career adaptability. Cadaret and Hartung (2021) designed career construction group counseling using the workshop format combining individual reflection and group discussion. The workshops were based on the My Career Story (MCS) workbook. The first session was “Telling My Story,” which included role models, favorite magazines/TV shows/websites, favorite books/movies, and favorite mottos. The second was “Hearing My Story,” which included describing myself and my interests, scripting roles, making suggestions, and constructing a life portrait. The third session, “Enacting My Story,” included co-setting goals, seeking more information, and exploring pathways to select and identify career goals. Results indicated that the career construction intervention increased students’ career control and confidence. Ginevra et al. (2017) used a life design approach to develop resources that help cope with career transitions, encourage thinking about the future, identify one’s strengths, and plan future projects. It is divided into three phases. Participants were encouraged to tell, revise, and construct their career stories in the first phase. In the second phase, participants were administered an online questionnaire on hope, optimism, resilience, future direction, and career readiness. Consider their strengths in response to the career change in the third phase. Results indicated that the life design approach improved their career adaptability.

Peila-Shuster et al. (2021) used career construct theory to conduct career workshops with adults who had been unemployed for more than six months. Workshops included current status, describing role models, favorite mottos, rewriting stories, reflections, and action plans. The counseling utilizes the My Career Storybook to help participants cope with their problems and prepare for their job search by facilitating narratability, intentionality, and career adaptability. Da Silva et al. (2022) conducted career construct interviews with students. The interview consisted of three workshops that (1) discussed role models, television shows, books or movies, mottos, and early memories; (2) Exploring participants’ answers to career construct interview questions; (3) Discuss the steps needed to implement a new career plan. The study showed that the Career Construct Interview promotes the development of students’ career adaptability and remains stable 3 months after the intervention. This suggests that the intervention of the Career Construct Interview has a good latency. Santilli et al. (2019) compared the impact of life design and traditional career counseling on adolescents. Life design group counseling utilized the “My Career Story” workshop format. The results showed that the intervention promoted the development of career adaptability in the Life Design group. This suggests that “My Career Story” may be an effective means of developing career adaptability in adolescents.

However, the study yielded inconsistent results. Researchers examined the impact of the life design workshop on 9th and 12th-grade students. The intervention utilized the “My Career Story” life design methodology. The results showed that the life design intervention did not impact students’ career adaptability ( Cardoso et al., 2018 ).

Online career group

The advantage of online interventions is the availability of audiovisual materials, including videos, slideshows, and animations, which help students explore values, interests, and skills independently. Online career counseling is more accessible than traditional career guidance, and students can access various practical information ( Chen et al., 2022 ).

Nota et al. (2016) compared the validity of online life-based design and traditional test interpretations. All students received personalized feedback, including suggestions for future schools and jobs related to their interests, values, and motivation. Results indicated that the online life design group demonstrated higher career adaptability, life satisfaction, and future aspirations. The researchers compared online and face-to-face life design counseling on career development. The online interventions included an introduction to online books, bilingual career videos, short animations, access to a virtual library, an introduction to similar websites that promote career development, and online chats with career counselors. The results showed that online and face-to-face career interventions improved students’ career development ( Pordelan et al., 2018 ). Later, they compared life design digital storytelling and face-to-face storytelling, and the study found that the digital storytelling group had higher career decision self-efficacy than face-to-face storytelling ( Pordelan et al., 2021 ).

Zammitti et al. (2023) conducted a life design paradigm online career intervention with college students to enhance their psychological resources. The online intervention consisted of career workshops and 13 online activities. The study showed that an online group career intervention in the life design paradigm promotes the development of resilience, subjective risk intelligence, career adaptability, self-efficacy, optimism, hope, and life satisfaction. Camussi et al. (2023) foster the development of student’s skills to face complexity and unpredictability, transforming their time perspective into optimism to face the future. The intervention was based on the theoretical model of Life Design. The intervention themes were “My future, why?” and “Who am I and who do I want to be?.” The intervention consisted of two online workshops. It included reflections on conscious life design and current global contextual challenges. The study demonstrated that the Life Design online intervention facilitated the development of students’ levels of career adaptability, courage, time perspective, and resilience.

Individual career counseling

Individual career counseling is usually a one-on-one approach that assists with career confusion to enhance career adaptability. Individual counseling has the highest cost but significantly impacts the client and the counselor.

The value of individual career counseling is to help all those challenged by unemployment and poverty (especially emerging adults) to become employable, find decent work, and increase their sense of self, and in the process, promote the idea of a fair and just society ( Maree and Twigge, 2016 ). Maree and Gerryts (2014) conducted narrative counseling with a newly young male engineer based on career construct theory. Methods included collage, Career Interest Profile, life chapters, lifeline, early recollections technique, and Career Construction Interview. Participants demonstrated an increase in willingness to cope with challenges and adaptive strategies. This suggests that narrative counseling can facilitate the development of career adaptability. Maree (2016) conducted career construction counseling with a mid-career Black man to construct, deconstruct, reconstruct, and co-construct the client’s life story. The interview included role models, favorite magazines/TV/websites, favorite stories, early memories, and favorite mottos. The client demonstrated an improved self-awareness and a willingness to be more flexible in dealing with challenges related to the career.

Career assessment

The Career Construction Interview and MCS workbook are two qualitative assessment tools under the Career Construction Theory. The groups for which the tools are applicable may be different. The adult population may be more suitable for the Career Construction Interview, and most individual counseling uses the Career Construction Interview ( Maree and Gerryts, 2014 ; Maree, 2016 ; Maree and Twigge, 2016 ). Quantitative tools for career construction intervention mostly use a career adaptability scale ( Maree and Symington, 2015 ; Ginevra et al., 2017 ; Maree et al., 2019 ).

Quantitative assessment is a standardized and scientific measurement tool but has certain disadvantages. The advantage of qualitative assessment is that it facilitates the discussion of group career counseling and can improve the shortcomings of quantitative tools. The case study of self-narrative can help the researcher to sort out the main conflicts and critical variables in career development ( Guan and Li, 2015 ). Integrative Structured Interview, based on the system’s theoretical framework, is a method that combines qualitative and quantitative measures to advance storytelling. Using Hollander’s interests as the basis for quantitative assessment, integrating assessment results with storytelling, the integrative structured interview facilitates this integration through quantitative score-based career storytelling that focuses not on the scores but on facilitating participants’ understanding of their scores, career decisions, and transitions ( McMahon et al., 2020 ). Therefore, it is necessary to develop a hybrid standardized assessment method based on career construction theory.

Career construction theory has been widely used in the field of career counseling. Career group counseling is guided by the theory of career construction, and career intervention programs are designed for the career construction process of different groups, which can effectively solve the problems faced by different groups in career development. Individual career counseling can help cases to link their self-concept with their work through the self-construction of work so that individuals can become the creators of their work and actively construct the meaning of their careers to be prepared for the new changes in the work pattern.

Brown and Ryan Krane (2000) meta-analysis identified five critical elements of career counseling: written exercises and workbooks, individualized explanations and feedback, career world information, role modeling, and building support. The MCS workbook corresponds to the written exercises and workbooks among the key elements. Another meta-analysis indicated that the three critical elements of career counseling are counselor support, value clarification, and psycho-educational intervention ( Whiston et al., 2017 ). The career construction interview gained direct counselor support and clarification of specific values. Combining the MCS manual and supporting materials may effectively develop career adaptability in adolescents ( Santilli et al., 2019 ). However, some research suggests that ninth graders show more difficulty than twelfth graders in recounting their own experiences ( Cardoso et al., 2018 ). This may be because the career construction interview is more helpful for lower grades, which require direct support and clarification of specific values from the counselor.

Currently, the primary interventions of career construction theory are computer-assisted career counseling systems, workshops, group counseling, and individual counseling. Career courses are the most effective ( Oliver and Spokane, 1988 ). Therefore, converting life design counseling into a career course is warranted, and a career construction orientation curriculum needs to be developed to enrich the career construction intervention. A meta-analysis by Whiston et al. (2003) demonstrated that intervention effectiveness significantly increases using a computerized career guidance system in counseling. Various career intervention approaches are often integrated into practice, mainly using computerized career guidance with other modalities. The study found that a comprehensive intervention combining online life design and written exercises was more likely to increase students’ career adaptability and life satisfaction ( Nota et al., 2016 ).

Future research trends

Although the assessment tools for career construct interventions have been enriched in recent years, the stability, validity, and applicability of the assessment tools still need to be tested in the further. Career construction interventions focus on the reconstruction of life stories. Some studies have found that career construct interventions did not increase students’ career adaptability ( Maree et al., 2017 ; Cardoso et al., 2018 ). This suggests that relying on the Career Adaptability Scale as a quantitative study is insufficient, some questionnaires should be designed to measure whether students can articulate and identify what is important to them before and after the intervention. Assessment tools for career construction intervention mainly consist of qualitative or quantitative tool, but standardization still needs to be improved ( Di Fabio, 2016 ; Cardoso et al., 2022 ). Some studies utilize quantitative and qualitative assessment tools ( Maree, 2020 ), but they need more cross-cultural validation.

Therefore, future research in assessment tools can consider the following aspects: In terms of assessment content, special assessment tools must be prepared for different and unique groups. Savickas (2011) developed a complete set of guidelines for career construction counseling. Online guidelines and assessment tools could be developed in the future, incorporating technologies such as computer networks and multimedia. In particular, comprehensive assessment tools that include quantitative and qualitative aspects should be developed to meet the needs of large-scale research with different groups and achieve standardization and stability of assessment methods.

First, there is a question of what groups and career interventions are most effective under what conditions. The economic benefits of career interventions in different modalities, age groups, and various intervention goals are critical. The meta-analysis result indicated that the career course was the most effective but required the most intervention time. Individual counseling produced more benefits per session than other interventions ( Oliver and Spokane, 1988 ). Subsequently, meta-analysis yielded different results. Individual career counseling was the most effective, followed by group career counseling, with career courses coming in third. Computerized online systems were the most cost-effective ( Whiston et al., 1998 ). A recent meta-analysis indicated that individual counseling was the most effective, while group and individual counseling and computer-based interventions varied widely ( Whiston et al., 2017 ). Meta-analyses have not yet yielded consistent conclusions. In addition to the results, individual and group counseling are effective methods. However, at the same time, it is essential to consider the number of people and the economic benefits that professional interventions can bring ( Whiston, 2011 ).

Additionally, the results showed differences in intervention impact based on the participants’ grades. Ninth graders only improved at the level of career certainty, while twelfth graders showed more significant development on all measured variables. This may be because higher-graders can better understand what is important to them and what they strive for. Therefore, it is essential to consider the characteristics and needs of different groups to maximize the effectiveness of career construction interventions in future research. Different intervention modalities affect individuals’ career development, which is best for group counseling and which works best for individuals. These issues must be better understood, requiring meta-analysis or systematic review to explore in the further.

Second, digital technology is essential for career interventions. In particular, Online interventions allow alternative experiences and role modeling to be more readily available through websites where short videos of successful people can be viewed and inspired. Therefore, career construction theory may benefit career interventions in the digital age. Online career construction interventions are very efficient and likely to be used more and more. Online career construction can present stories in short films, slideshows, or photographs, allowing the client and the counselor to discover hidden stories and help the client gain new concepts. The advantage of online career construction intervention is convenience, where stories can be opened on a computer or other electronic device. In the storytelling process, information technology is utilized as a platform for digital storytelling, where one’s life story is expressed as a photo, movie, or audio ( Pordelan et al., 2021 ). In the future, personalized interpretation and feedback procedures can be added to the computer-based online intervention to maximize the usefulness of the career construction intervention.

Finally, developing new content and a short career construction interview are necessary. Using career construction theory, the researcher developed a peer motivational interview for at-risk students that included engaging, focusing, evoking, and planning ( Gai et al., 2022 ). Questions include “What do you want to obtain from your future occupation? Why?” “What occupations are you likely to pursue in the future? What occupations are you unlikely to pursue? What occupations are you not sure about whether to pursue? How can you become certain?” Future research needs to focus on particular groups as subjects, focusing on those severely hindered in their career development or career transition, and test the effectiveness of career interviews through group interventions to maximize the effects of career interventions.

However, completing the career construction interview typically requires two 90-min sessions, which hinders its practical use with many students in school. Therefore, Rehfuss and Sickinger (2015) developed a short form of the career construction interview. Only three initial career construction interview questions were used in the short form. “Who did you admire when you were growing up? What are your favorite magazines, TV shows, or websites? Tell me your favorite saying or motto.” These three questions were used to learn about the students’ role models, self-advice to help solve current problems, and preferences for the work environment. In addition, there is a need to develop a short form of the Life Design Group Counseling and MCS. Also, some form of screening is necessary to determine what questions of the career construction intervention will benefit the individual the most.

Career construction theory applies to the current borderless career era, and such a career theory perspective is more helpful for individuals to adapt to the complex and changing career world in the future. Currently, the tools of career construction theory mainly include the structured career construction interview and the qualitative assessment manual of MCS. The interventions of the theory mainly include workshops, group counseling, online group counseling, and individual interviews. This study identified several challenges to the career construction tools and interventions.

Therefore, it offers some suggestions on how to deal with these challenges: Future researchers need to pay attention to the development of comprehensive quantitative and qualitative assessments to standardize and stabilize assessment methods for the tools. For the interventions, there is a need to examine the question of what groups and under what conditions career interventions are most effective. Second, future research should develop personalized interpretation and feedback procedures for computerized online interventions in the digital age. Finally, developing new content and a short career construction interview are necessary.

Author contributions

DW: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft. YL: Writing – review & editing.

The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Acknowledgments

This study would like to thank and extend our sincere gratitude to the reviewers.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords: career construction theory, My Career Story, career construction interview, career intervention, future trends

Citation: Wang D and Li Y (2024) Career construction theory: tools, interventions, and future trends. Front. Psychol . 15:1381233. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1381233

Received: 03 February 2024; Accepted: 25 March 2024; Published: 05 April 2024.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2024 Wang and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Yanling Li, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

• Schools & departments

Reflective essays

Guidance and information on using reflective essays.

The reflective essay is one of the most common reflective assignments and is very frequently used for both formative and especially summative assessments. Reflective essays are about presenting reflections to an audience in a systematic and formal way.

Generally, all good academic practice for assignments applies when posing reflective essays.

Typical reflective essay questions

Reflective essays tend to deal with a reflective prompt that the essay needs to address. This also often means that the essay will have to draw on a range of experiences and theories to fully and satisfactorily answer the question.

The questions/prompts should not be too vague, for example ‘reflect on your learning’, but should define an area or an aspect relevant to your learning outcomes. This is most easily ensured with thorough guidelines, highlighting elements expected in the essay.

Questions could be something like (not exhaustive):

• reflect on learning in the course with regards to [choose an aspect]
• reflect on personal development across an experience with regards to certain skills
• reflect on development towards subject benchmarks statements and the extent to which these are achieved
• reflect on the progression towards the course’s defined learning outcomes or the school’s or the University’s Graduate Attributes
• reflect on some theory relevant to the course. (Remember that for this to be a reflective essay and not an academic/critical essay, the student must use that theory to explain/inform their own experiences, and use their own experiences to criticise and put the theory into context – that is, how theory and experience inform one another.)

Typical structure and language

Reflective essays will often require theoretical literature, but this is not always essential.  Reflective essays can be built around a single individual experience, but will often draw on a series of individual experiences – or one long experience, for example an internship, that is broken into individual experiences.

The typical language and structure is formal – for thorough descriptions on this, see ‘Academic reflections: tips, language and structure’ in the Reflectors’ Toolkit, which can be valuable to highlight to students.

Academic reflections: tips, language and structure (within the Reflectors’ Toolkit)

Length and assignment weight if assessed

There is no one length that a reflective essay must take. As with all written assignments, the main consideration is that the length is appropriate for evidencing learning, answering the question and meeting the criteria.

Similarly, there is no clear answer for what percentage of the overall mark is attached to the assignment. However, the choice should mirror the required workload for the reflector to complete it, how that fits into your initiative, and the amount of preparation the reflector has had.

For instance, if the student has received formative feedback on multiple pieces of work, a larger proportion of the course mark may be appropriate, compared to if the student had not had a chance to practice. It is important to keep in mind that many students will not have had many chances to practice reflective essays before university.

Back to ‘Components of reflective tasks’