Career Writing
creative, expressive, and reflective writing in career guidance
Reinekke Lengelle, PhD candidate
Congrès International 2014
en orientation et développement de carrière, 4 - 6 Juin, Québec, Canada
Career writing is…
A narrative approach to career
guidance that aims to help address the
challenges that require self-direction
What is needed?
Individual narratives
to replace ‘grand narratives’
A new story, about who you are, that
provides both meaning and direction
and lets you navigate the current
(career) climate.
Approaches
Narrative career counselling
-one on one with an expert
-costs time/money
-although it’s a co-construction, counsellor puts it
together for you
Career writing (also a narrative approach)
- people learn to construct/write their own
narratives
- time and cost effective (work with bigger groups)
Research
Collaborative effort
Athabasca University
The Hague University of Applied Sciences
(Research group)
PhD dissertation, Tilburg University, The Netherlands
Advisors
Rob Poell Department of Human Resources. Tilburg University, The Netherlands
Mark L. Savickas Department of Family and Community Medicine. Northeastern Ohio Medical
University
Colleagues
Frans Meijers The Hague University,
Mijke Post Research “floor manager” The Hague University
Research question:
Can 2 two-day career-writing courses – one
before and one after work placements – foster
the development of a career narrative among
students in higher education?
Participants:
Third-year Dutch bachelor students
20 Experimental group
20 Control group
Various cultural backgrounds
More females than males
The set up
Experimental group
2 day career-writing course
5 month work placement
2 day career-writing course
Control group
1 writing sample
5 month work placement
1 writing sample
The intervention
Creative, expressive, and reflective writing
• Fiction
• Journaling
• Poetry
• ‘Inquiry’
• Sharing of work in the classroom
Data collection
• Writing samples
• Work-placement self reports
• Luck Readiness Index
• Employer evaluations
How did we measure if career writing had the
desired effect?
• Dialogical Self Theory coding
• LIWC “Luke”(Linguistic Index Word Count)
• Luck Readiness Index – 52 questions
• Employer evaluations – 16 statement
questionnaire
• Dialogical Self Theory coding
I-positions, expanded I, meta, promoter
• LIWC (Linguistic Index Word Count)
pronoun switching, increase in cognitive/causal/insight
words, emotions words (positive & negative)
• Luck Readiness Index – 8 qualities
• Employer evaluations – 16 statement
questionnaire
Results
Dialogical Self Coding
Work placements alone do not serve in helping to construct meaning and direction.
Results
Linguistic Index Word Count (LIWC)
Work experience, without the dialogue about it, leads to more negative feelings.
Results
Luck Readiness Index Scores measuring:
Flexibility, Optimism, Risk, Curiosity, Persistence, Strategy, Efficacy, Luckiness
Work experience increases luck readiness, but with a dialogue, the jumps are bigger.
Results
Employer Evaluations
Students who were able to have a dialogue about work experiences before they embarked, were
evaluated more positively by employers.
Career writing does contribute to the formation of a career
narrative that helps provide both meaning and direction as
shown by the results that all point in the same direction.
Results are modest yet hopeful
Possible discussion:
-future research directions
-weaknesses of the research
Recommendations
So you want to be a facilitator of Career
Writing…
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try it first yourself (embodied experience)
write regularly for your own joy and curiosity
find exercises, writing prompts, poems, and resources that YOU like
don’t make make it another hoop for students or clients to jump through
slow down, make space, and grow courage
use the research, theory, and information that now exists to make a case for career
writing at your institution
Publications
reinekke@athabascau.ca
www.blacktulippress.com
•
Lengelle, R. & Meijers, F. (2015). Career Writing: Creative, Expressive, and Reflective Approaches to
Narrative Career Learning and Guidance. The Canadian Journal of Career Development (Accepted).
•
Lengelle, R., Meijers, F., Poell, R., Post, M. (2014). Career Writing as a Dialogue about Work Experience: A
Recipe for Luck Readiness? (Submitted).
•
Lengelle, R., Meijers, F., Poell, R., Post, M. (2014). Career Writing: creative, expressive, and reflective
approaches to narrative identity formation in students in higher education. Journal of Vocational Behavior
(In press).
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Lengelle, R. & Meijers, F. (2014). Narrative Identity: writing the self in career learning. British Journal of
Guidance and Counselling, 42, 52-72. DOI: 10.1080/03069885.2013.816837.
•
Lengelle, R., Meijers, F., Poell, R., Post, M. (2013). The effects of creative, expressive, and reflective writing
in career learning. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 83, 419-427.
•
Meijers, F. & Lengelle, R. (2012) Narratives at work: the development of a career identity. British Journal of
Guidance and Counselling, 40, 157-177.
•
Winters, A., Meijers, F., Lengelle, R, & Baert, H. (2012) The self in career learning: An evolving dialogue. In
Hermans, H & Gieser, T (Eds.), Handbook of dialogical self theory (pp. 454-460) UK: Cambridge University
Press.