Book Club: The Decade After High School: A Professional’s Guide

By Lisa Russell

Cathy Campbell, Michael Ungar
CERIC (Canadian Education and Research Institute of Counselling), 2008
ISBN: 978-0-9687840-4-4

The Decade After High School: A Professional’s Guide by Cathy Campbell and Michael Ungar, provides a useful qualitative contribution to the literature on the transition to work for the current generation. It starts with an overview of the particular transition time being researched, the issues facing the current generation, and identifies three main strategies that are employed in navigating the challenges of this decade. It then examines the impacts of various external influences on the client going through this transition: parents, personal attribute, labour market, career support, and opportunities for career exploration among others, concluding with suggestions for career practitioners and highlights the key findings of the report. At a mere 57 pages, the comprehensive overview offered by the entirety of the report makes it worth the read, but for those with severe time constraints it is possible to glean the key findings from reading the last three sections only. It is written in a very accessible format allowing people from a wide variety of backgrounds to benefit from the information it contains; from a career development practitioner perspective, its assessment of the various categories into which we can classify client behaviour during this time provides a relevant paradigm for determining approach and service offerings. This research is a terrific resource and should be a must read for any career practitioner who interacts with clients during this particular transition time.

Lisa Russell is currently Manager of the Coop Education Services Centre at Memorial University in St.John’s NewfoundLand.