Directions and Guidelines to complete a Career Narrative
Why use as a tool?
A career is more than just the sum of its parts, often it is the not the roles themselves that show our direction and development, but the milestones and events that make up the journey that have much to tell us. These milestones can help us to see any emerging patterns in our development and may help point the way to future needs.
A career is more than just a biography, it records our aspirations and our fascinations, our motivations and our motivators, our visions and our inspirations. Thus your career plan should show your past, present and future career path(s).
To this aim, the following tool has been developed, using the principles of the ‘Life line’ with which some may be familiar as a treatment intervention tool.
How to get started
Many will start from a position of having a number of years behind them and feel rather daunted at the task in hand. However, it is not necessary (in fact it is to be discouraged) to go back over all the minutiae of your whole career. Given a short time to reflect and dedicate to the task, it is those events and situations that first come to mind that are your marker events, your milestones.
1.
Begin with the concrete, factual information of the employment you have had (e.g.
Basic Grade/Band 5, Senior posts/Band 6 etc) – now you have started mapping your journey.
2.
As a visual representation, draw a line that represents your journey – this may be a winding path, a straight river etc.
3.
Put the factual information reflected on in point 1 onto the line in the relevant order.
Maybe use a box around each one to show that this is information that relates to posts held.
4.
Now think about events within each post - which ones come to mind? Maybe you were given a specific project, attended some formal training that had a significant impact on you and/or your practice, dealt with a particularly difficult situation etc.
5.
Plot these events on your journey - what came first, where should it sit?
6.
Once all these are on the plan, think about categorizing them, you may think of categories such as ‘clinical speciality’, ‘teaching’, ‘managing others’ etc. Once you have identified your categories maybe you could either give them a colour or a shape?
7.
Your journey, graphically represented, is beginning to take shape.
8.
Think about any forks in your journey. Was a route open to you that you did not choose? Either then or looking back can you see a path that was not clear before?
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College of Occupational Therapists 2006 1

9.
Plot these onto your journey too.
Example of a visual career narrative:
?
Secondment to COT
MSc Health
Practice 2002-
2005
Erasmus exchange to
Finland
Programme
Leader
Clinical
Specialist fork in the path
Head OT
Mental Health
1991
Head OT
Forensic
Psychiatry
1985
MoHO
Training
Secondment to develop
Fieldwork
Recognised Teacher
Status –local
University Suicide &
Serious
Incident
Investigation
Team
EducatorTraining
BSc (Hons)
Health
Management
1997-99
Secondment to
Confederation to develop multi- prof fieldwork educator training
University
Lecturer
2000
Assessment
Officer
Admissions Tutor
(PT programme)
DipCOT
SROT 1983
NEBSS certificate in management
Professional/
General
Management fork in the path
Project
Management fork in the path
Now for some reflections :

Is there a pattern to your career to date? If so, what is it? If not, is there a reason for that?

What has influenced you in your journey? People, places, training, yourself?
Why – in what way?

What motivates you? Is this clear in your career journey – how may this be harnessed for your continued journey?

What interests you?

What support and guidance have you had to get from the beginning of your

 journey to your present place on the path?
What opportunities have you had? What opportunities did you perhaps miss?
What are your skills?

How might this information inform your choice of future development opportunities and career – and what do you need in order for that to happen?
What you should have now is a very clear representation of your journey and some reflections of your strengths, motivators, interests and support needs which should begin to aid your career development for the future.
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College of Occupational Therapists 2006 2