Super’s Exploration – Stage or State?

By Deborah MacNamara

The Chinese character for chaos is also the same for opportunity, similar to the double bind often experienced in Super’s exploration stage. This is apparent in the Career Explorations Seminars that I teach at a university in British Columbia. Participants have a variety of cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, as well as differences in age. They provide many reasons for exploring career options at this point in their life, such as maturity issues, unemployment, burnout, divorce, and downsizing; nonetheless, they are all united in their purpose to try and figure out “what they will do with the rest of their life.” The emotional tenor of these classes is always one of anxiety and excitement, hope and hopelessness, as well as an expectation that at last they will find a career direction. Many believe testing will ultimately point to their ‘true’ career direction and in fear and confusion they latch onto it as a means of decision-making.

The exploration stage is characterized by an examination and consideration of occupational areas prior to committing to a particular direction. Different age groups face particular issues when exploring career options. Young adults sometimes have problems articulating their likes and dislikes because they haven’t been exposed to many activities or the work world. This lack of awareness can be attributed in part to increasing levels of youth unemployment and the challenge of finding part time work. Furthermore, an increasing number of parents are telling their children to focus on schoolwork and diminish outside activities – even while attending college and university! Given increasing competition for post-secondary seats in British Columbia (you need a B+ average for entry into the top universities) this is a successful strategy in terms of increasing one’s grade point average, but it handicaps the student in terms of information about the work world and their personal likes and dislikes. Young adults need to be encouraged to be active in a variety of activities, from sports, hobbies, volunteering, to paid employment, which all help to inform career exploration.

In today’s labour market, it is not uncommon for people at any age to enter the exploration stage at any point in their career due to changing technologies, organizational restructuring or injury. For mature workers, the exploration stage can be overwhelming, confusing, incredibly freeing, and at the same time, downright scary. The challenge for these workers is often in realigning their expectations with the realities of the labour market. It is not uncommon for people in the exploration stage to ponder a number of career areas but when they start to research occupations in depth they are faced with increasing educational levels and disparity in income levels. For example, one of my mature students was downsized from a union factory job where he was making $80,000 a year with a grade 10 education. He had a great buy-out package and wanted help considering what 2-year educational program he could take so that he could make this type of money again!

Given the number of career changes people are expected to go through in a lifetime, we are going to enter the exploration process more frequently than imagined by Super. In fact, stage models as a whole are increasingly challenged by contexts that are unpredictable. Instead of stages perhaps we should consider exploration as part of an ongoing cycle in relation to career development. The life cycle consists of a period of incubation, a rising to the peak, a decline, then death, only to repeat itself again. Exploration parallels the incubation period, the waiting and gathering of information that will enable a step forward. This is a sacred process, of increasing awareness of oneself although it is not usually treated as sacred by most. The majority of people I see want answers now; they don’t want to be undecided about their future due to the anxiety and uncertainty associated with it. Some have become so goal driven that they have lost sight of the process and the creativity that is inherent in this exploratory or incubation state. The challenge is how to help people honour the importance of this stage and take the time to explore career areas despite feeling like they are “getting left behind.” For productive exploration people need to hold their decision-making in abeyance for an unknown period of time but the reality is that many have a low threshold for tolerating this ambiguity.

On the other hand, it can also be said that some people seem to stay in the exploration state for too long, that is, they become stuck and unable to move forward. This is often about fear and failure, of anxiety associated with making a career choice only to discover that it was a mistake. One day a student who had taken my 3-credit career decision making class and had numerous individual counselling appointments said she was still undecided and didn’t have any areas she was interested in. She asked me to help her decide on some new areas to explore and in total exasperation I told her I didn’t know how to help her, I had given her all the help I could and the ‘tank was empty’. The reality was we were having the wrong conversation. I asked her why she was stuck and what was holding her back from making a decision and this strategy was useful in moving her forward and in having a conversation about the fears underlying her lack of decision making. The thing about exploratory work is that it feels like productive work and for those who are procrastinating about making a career decision, it provides them with a safe haven because they can occupy themselves with activity. The question becomes how much exploring is enough and when do you know?

In today’s changing economic climate I wonder if exploring careers is not a stage so much as it is a state that one enters into at various points in their work history. I have adopted John Krumboltz’s stance of ‘planned happenstance’ and tell my students that they need to plan and set goals in their career; yet, they should always be ready to consider new opportunities and avenues for work. There is a need to remain reflexive and open minded to new career possibilities given the unpredictability of the labour and technological advancement. Planned happenstance becomes a cognitive framework for remaining open to new opportunities for careers, and the irony is that we need to be both open to possibilities yet planful. Perhaps exploration is an attitude, not a stage, and it is a state of being, not a rite of passage.

References

Mitchell, K., Levin, A., Krumboltz, J. (1999). Planned Happenstance: Creating
Unexpected Career Opportunities, Journal of Counseling and Development, 77, 115-124.

Deborah MacNamara is a Counsellor at Kwantlen University College in Richmond, British Columbia. She is currently completing her doctorate in Interdisciplinary Studies and her research explored the careers of professional and technical independent contractors. 

The Summer 2003 issue of the Contact Point Bulletin features articles on Stage 2 – Exploration of Donald Super’s theory on Career Development.

Are you interested in learning more about the Exploration stage? Are there topics explored in a particular article that you would like to discuss further? Would you like to share your own ideas about this particular stage and how it impacts individuals between the ages of 14-24? Come join us for this unique opportunity to chat with the authors of Super Series stage 2 and network with others working with this group.

• Tuesday September 23 (4:00 – 5:00 pm EST)