Early steps in managing the careers of careers advisers

Employment Relations Record, Jan, 2007

Managing the careers of secondary school career advisers is important because of the current interest in career guidance for secondary school students shown by both Australian State and Federal Governments and international organisations (such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development). It is significant because of the development of more rigorous training and professional practice standards for the secondary school careers advisers, charged with the responsibility and task of providing such career guidance.

This article identifies New South Wales Department of Education (NSWDE) actions, taken to manage the careers of its secondary school career advisers from 1941-1991. This was the era of greatest NSWDE involvement in the career management of its secondary school careers advisers. The prism of a specific career management intervention schema developed by Arnold (1997:46, as shown in Table 1 below) is used to review the steps taken by the NSWDE. These steps will be compared and contrasted with Arnold's schema and consequently provide a basis to identify areas of practice that, by 1991, either appeared to have been achieved or were still in need of attention, modification and/or implementation. Similar research is planned when reviewing the era from 1991 to the present.

INTRODUCTION

This article will focus on the early steps in the career management of secondary careers advisers in NSWDE schools. However, before this is done, it is necessary to deal with a number of matters that relate to the conceptualisation of career management. Firstly, there is often some conceptual difficulty found when attempting to define 'career management'. This appears to be because of the seeming inter-changeability and/or incorporation of this term with others such as organizational career development (Dunn, 1997), career development and guidance and planning (Arnold, 1997; Nankervis, Compton and Baird, 2005; Noe, 2005). Also, Inkson (2007: 255-256), drawing upon the work of Greenhaus, Callanan and Godshalk (2000), views career management as a

   ... disciplined, rational.... business management like process
   (that allows individuals to progress) to create a 'career plan'
   based on logical consideration of their internal resources an
   external opportunities, (create a plan based on)... step(s) and
   execute (d) as best they can ... and monitor the results, modify
   their action to conform to the plan or change the plan according
   to the changed circumstances.

To overcome such difficulties, this article adopts an established schema of organisationally driven career management interventions for its frame of reference, as provided by Arnold (1997: 46) in Table 1 below.

Arnold's schema has two main advantages; (i) it uses clear categories or types of career management interventions that are explained and expanded in his book, and (ii) its use overcomes the problem mentioned above of the interchangeability and/or incorporation of the concept of career management with other concepts associated with people's careers. While such a schema may have its weaknesses, (for example more recent developments in career intervention techniques), the provision of a set of career management actions does provide a benchmark for comparison and contrast when examining the early steps taken by the NSWDE to manage the careers of secondary careers advisers, to enable them to carry out their tasks as effectively, efficiently and caringly as contemporary circumstances and expectations allowed.

However, it is important to note that organisationally-driven career management is also affected by at least two factors not specifically addressed in Arnold's (1997:46) schema: (i) the number of employees to receive or be the subject of this management and (ii) the variations in the tasks which they are required to perform. For example, the issue of career adviser staffing levels did and still does impact on organisationally-driven, career management interventions because of its resource implications--a greater number of practitioners tends to result in an increase in the size of budgets to implement the interventions identified and impact on the choice of methodology and technology used in creating the interventions.

Also, functional changes for secondary school careers advisers have similar resource implications (as noted immediately above) when the NSWDE had to consider any career management interventions. For example, in recent decades, the New South Wales Department of Education and Training (NSWDE as it currently identified) Career Adviser training programs have changed from an emphasis on direct instruction by trainers to one that requires more individual completion of set tasks and exercises. These changes reflected changes in pedagogical practices for the training of adults and responses to the costs of training prospective secondary school career advisers.

Thus, this article is designed to provide a background to the current state of career management provided for this practitioner group which, as recently as 1997, was characterised as lacking easily identified career paths and had therefore been viewed by competent teachers as less attractive work than more traditional discipline areas within secondary schools (McCowan and McKenzie, 1997). This article will deal with early aspects of the career management of secondary school careers advisers in NSWDE schools during the period from 1941 to 1991. The year 1991 is chosen as a cut-off point as it marks a clear turning point where Federal Government interest and involvement in the issue of career education and careers advisers' role in this activity and process can be seen to reach critical mass. This involvement by the Federal Government was foreshadowed by recommendations made in the publications of the National Board of Employment, Education and Training Report--'Strengthening Careers Education in Schools' (Ramsey, 1991) and 'A National Training Framework for Careers Coordinators: A Proposal' (Laver, 1992).