By Tannis Goddard

In a recent interview (Fall 2007), Jennifer Browne, President of Contact Point, pointed to the growing potential for technology to help reach clients in non-traditional ways. e-Career Counselling is a new and emerging practice based on an integration of career counselling, adult learning and online instructional theories. By changing the space from an office or classroom to a secure virtual learning environment on the Web, new approaches are being developed that allow practitioners and clients to meet and work together across time and space to collaboratively address clients’ career needs.

Using technology in career development isn’t a new idea. Our field was innovating technical developments as early as the 1960’s resulting in over ten Computer Assisted Career Guidance Systems (CACGS) being created by 1980. CHOICES and DISCOVER are two highly recognizable systems which are still utilized in career centres across Canada. The career development field has long recognized the value of technology for administering assessments and organizing vast amounts of labour market and occupational information. However, despite our early adoption, we have lingered behind in exploring and developing interactive methods for facilitated online career services.

By looking at the different affordances that online spaces offer – not simply comparing to face-to-face – a new opportunity can emerge for our services and practice. Within the higher education field extensive study and research has been ongoing for over 10 years, examining questions of effective online design and interactive experiences. By tapping this research and integrating it with the principles of quality career development and current career theory, the online space can offer a new way to assist clients to author and make meaning of their career story.

How Does it Work?

Most of us use technology in our day to day communication with colleagues, in our own labour market research, and may use email to stay connected with our clients. When we start to think about designing and delivering fully online career programs, we need to consider a broader design perspective that builds a purposeful and easy to use space for clients. By choosing technology that provides a secure Web environment with diverse communication tools and thoughtfully organizing online materials into bite-sized concepts with activities that involve personal reflection, meaningful application, and interaction between clients and practitioners, we can create engaging spaces where the career counselling relationship can flourish.

When we shift from a physical to virtual environment, individuals have greater control in where and when they access the career service and can seek support and feedback when it is most meaningful. With a constructivist program design, clients can log on and review a selection of written materials and complete interactive exercises and respond to interactive questions and comments posed by their e-facilitator. Likewise, the e-facilitator can review the recent activities of his/her clients and take time to thoughtfully review and respond to a client’s process. This process of a-synchronous communication affords space for deep and thoughtful reflection and meaning-making, creating an opportunity for clients and practitioners alike to spend time assessing and articulating, through the written word.

Online Practice

Career theory today is articulating the importance of finding new ways to help clients construct, author and tell their career stories as a strategy to theme and make meaning of the sometimes fragmented episodes of work and career (Colin, 2000; McAdams 2001; McMahon 2008). The textual communication of online career practice offers an interesting intervention to do just that. Clients gain an opportunity to write, reread, reflect, and potentially re-define their personal feelings and point of view while making meaning of their personal and professional purpose. By viewing the online textual counselling process as “thinking that can be stopped and tinkered with”(McGinley & Tierney, cited in Harasim, 1990, p.49), clients can obtain a powerful view of their career issues and perceptions by juxtaposing the early and later stage written reflections over the career development process. And, the online practitioner has the privilege of witnessing and also referencing the client’s development.

The importance of a strong, healthy, and productive working alliance between the client and the practitioner is equally important online. What differs, is the medium and experience of how this relationship may develop because the “rapport between counselor and client in cyberspace is developed not by relating to another person’s physical presence and spoken work, but by entering the client’s mental constructs via the written word” (Anthony, K. 2000, p.626). As practitioners we begin to identify new cues online which differ from the familiar face-to-face (f2f) cues. Online indicators of a client’s emotional and cognitive state can be discerned through written tone, story point of view, frequency and depth of postings, patterns of completing the online activities and preferred communication tools. Although these may not feel as familiar as the f2f cues we trust, if we expand our comfort zone and learn new ways of perceiving our clients and revealing our voice and persona online we can create a safe and effective space for clients to do the same.

Clients are attracted to the benefits this service model can offer. Having served over 800 clients in fully online career programming, we have received feedback from clients that identifies the strengths of this delivery model. Clients appreciate the extensive and focused one-to-one consultation process and also cite the relationship with their facilitator and the ability to print off the process for reflection at a later date, as personal benefits. When we work with other organizations that want to set up and deploy online career services, their desire to go online usually comes from recognizing the benefits of flexibility, extended geographical reach and meeting client demands for online service. The internet is already part of our personal and work worlds – so too will it become part of our practicing network.

As an industry we have the responsibility to ask questions, explore opportunities and develop new models of practice that meet the needs of our clients and the demands of the labour market. I don’t believe that online services will or should replace f2f services, but it is time for us to explore how we can embrace the learning from other online disciplines and develop a conversation about best practices in the design and delivery of online career services to ensure we are providing client-centred, engaging, effective and ethical solutions.

If you would like to participate in the conversation, please email me at tannis.goddard@training-innovations.com to join in a group of practitioners exploring these issues at a global level.

Tannis is the President of Training Innovations – a career agency in BC that has delivered f2f services since 1992 and began offering online career services in 2004. Training Innovations also works with organizations to develop and implement online career services. Tannis is completing her Doctorate through the University of Sheffield and has been invited to present on the topic of online career counselling at CANNEXUS, NATCON, NCDA, IAEVG and CDAA in Australia. Tannis received the Career Management Association of BC’s Award of Excellence in 2007.

References

Anthony, K. (2000). Counselling in Cyberspace. Counselling Journal, 11 (10), 625-627.
McAdams, M. (2001). The Psychology of life stories. Review of General Psychology, 5, 100-122.
McMahon, M. (2008). Career Counselling: Storying new identities. Paper presented at the Australian Association of Career Counsellors Inc. 17th National     Conference. Hobart, Tasmania, 26-28 March.
Harasim, L. (1990). Online Education: An environment for collaboration and intellectual amplification. In Harasim L. (Ed.), Online Education, Perspectives of a New     Environment. New York, Praeger.