At the Cutting Edge: Artificial Intelligence in careers practice
The CDI and NICEC continue our collaborative Cutting Edge webinar series with our bi-annual seminars.
Free to CDI Members & NICEC Members. You will be asked for your membership number upon booking.
If you are a NICEC member and do not have your number please email, [email protected] to get this information.
This next webinar will take place on Thursday 2nd October 2025, 2.00pm-4.00pm.
Artificial Intelligence in Careers Practice
Rationale and purpose of the session
This session aims to explore the topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its emerging use in careers work.
Given its accelerating nature of development, we will consider five perspectives from very recent AI research findings. Thought leaders from the field will share their research highlights, and help us to enhance further our understanding of how AI is manifesting and impacting the world of careers.
In particular, we will explore some fundamental questions including:
- What are the risks and opportunities of integrating AI in careers work?
- How can we harness AI ethically and inclusively - enhancing, not replacing, human expertise?
- What are career chatbots and how could we use and develop them within our careers practice?
- Moreover, how could we develop and integrate the use of career chatbots in helping our clients to answer some of the more fundamental questions relating to career meaning and fulfilment?
- How else could we use AI in our careers practice?
- What might the future hold for AI and what are the implications for practitioners and clients?
This two-hour session will comprise a series of short input sessions, where highlights are shared from the latest research on AI within the context of careers. In addition, we will have a short demonstration of a range of AI applications within the careers field.
In addition, this session will be interspersed with interactive, small group discussions in break-out rooms, combined with whole group discussion and sense-making. Here we will reflect upon: what this means for us? How might we draw upon AI in our own careers practice? What questions are we left with? The session will culminate in a sign-posting to additional relevant resources and events to help us to continue with our CPD in this emergent field.
As hosts of this session, NICEC Fellows Dr Cathy Brown and Kate Mansfield will guide us through our agenda; they look forward to seeing you there.
Agenda
2pm Welcome - Cathy Brown / Michael Larbalestier
Warm welcome, personal introductions, scene setting group poll. Walking through our agenda for today.
Introduction - David Morgan, Chief Executive CDI
Emphasising why this topic is so relevant for us today in the careers field.
Career Assessment and AI - Professor Peter Robinson
Career development practitioners gather information about their service users for a variety of purposes, including identifying their support needs, making career choice recommendations, and tracking their progress. This input will address the question - what happens if AI powered web platforms take over these functions? What are the risks and benefits, and will we be able to judge them?
Reimagining Career Guidance with AI: Harnessing Technology While Keeping the Human Touch - Associate Professor Deirdre Hughes OBE and Dr Chris Percy
AI is poised to revolutionise career guidance by delivering personalised, real-time support at an unprecedented scale. Imagine intelligent systems that analyse job markets, match people to ideal career paths, and empower careers advisers to focus on deeper, human-centred support. As we look towards the future, the challenge is to harness AI ethically and inclusively - enhancing, not replacing, human expertise - to create smarter, fairer pathways for everyone’s career journey. This is not just a technological shift; it’s a chance to reshape how we guide and empower people in an ever-changing world of work.
Break-out room discussions
What does this mean for us in practice?
Plenary discussion
Comfort Break
Career Chatbot Design and Use - Marianne Wilson
Marianne will introduce key findings from her recent research on participatory design of career chatbots.
Career Chatbot and Career Meaning – Assistant Professor Wendy Pearson
Wendy will talk about her research “Help, my careers adviser is a chatbot!”. She will introduce the chatbot built to embrace a career construction approach. Wendy found in a research project that most career platforms use a person-environment fit approach. Conversely, she has built a chatbot which draws upon a career construction theory (Savickas, 1989) as the basis of a chatbot, which uses the ability of AI to produce and analyse stories. This chatbot uses values, memories, experiences and aspirations to identify meaning and develop life themes.
CDI AI for Career Practitioners Course – Insights from Four Cohorts - Michael Larbalestier
Michael Larbalestier will share key insights from running the CDI’s “AI for Career Practitioners” course, now completed by four cohorts. He will highlight practitioner reflections on the opportunities and concerns around AI, as well as how participants assessed their own AI confidence using a structured confidence framework. Michael will also present examples of the creative project ideas and practical applications participants devised as part of the course—offering a real-world view of how career practitioners are beginning to integrate AI into their work.
Break-out room discussions
Given what you have heard, what is occurring to you? What questions are you left with?
Plenary discussion
This session will culminate in a group discussion, where we share and make sense of our collective responses. Finally, we will move into a wider discussion, exploring how what we have heard might influence our personal use of AI in our careers practice.
4pm Cathy Brown and Kate Mansfield - Bringing to a close
We will conclude by considering our main take-away, sign-posting to further relevant resources and events and looking ahead to our next At the Cutting Edge Event.
NICEC Biographies
Dr Cathy Brown, NICEC Fellow
Cathy is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist, career practitioner and writer. Over the last 20 years she has run her own consultancy business, Evolve, where she has supported individuals, teams and organisations through transitions and change.
Cathy completed her MSc Occupational Psychology at Birkbeck College, University of London, and her MBA from European School of Management in Paris. More latterly, she completed her PhD explore career mobility at University of Derby. Cathy is a guest lecturer on Masters programmes at several UK universities. She speaks at seminars, and has been featured in the media for her work including Radio 4, Leadership Today, Career Matters, People Management and Career Development International. She writes and publishes practical guides to support individuals through life transitions, under the brand: Testing the Water®. These are available on www.amazon.co.uk, Waterstones and other leading book sellers.
Cathy’s client list includes, amongst many others: Akzo-Nobel, Avis, BBC, Boots, Career Development Institute, Co-operative Bank, Co-operative Food, Costain, John Lewis, Lincolnshire County Council, Loughborough University, NHS, PepsiCo, Saint-Gobain, Shell, Travelodge, United Nations High Commission for Refugees, University of Nottingham. Cathy is a NICEC Fellow.
Kate Mansfield, NICEC Fellow
Kate is a qualified Career Coach, trained by CCS & with an MSc in Organisational Behaviour & Postgraduate Certificate in Career & Talent Management from Kingston University. She is also a qualified Career Coach Supervisor with Oxford Brookes, and Lead Tutor on CCS's Accredited Career Coach Training.
She coaches clients individually, with a particular interest in the career paths of women. Many of her individual clients are mid to senior level female professionals wishing to construct their careers successfully on their own terms. Typical focus includes how to identify and leverage strengths at work; overcoming issues of impostor syndrome; how to build personal brands in ways more aligned to values; career development goals and career planning. Her earlier career included 13 years in executive level HR Recruitment and Interim Management recruitment. Kate became a Fellow of NICEC in 2024.
Michael Larbalestier, NICEC Fellow
Michael Larbalestier is a digital learning and innovation specialist with extensive experience in career development. As a NICEC Fellow, active CIPD member, and CDI Project Associate, he champions digital confidence among career practitioners, leveraging technology to empower individuals and organisations to thrive in an ever-changing digital landscape.
Professor Peter Robertson, NICEC Fellow
Pete teaches on the Postgraduate Diploma in Career Guidance & Development at Edinburgh Napier University. Pete is the current President of the CDI. He is a chartered psychologist, and a fellow of NICEC.
Associate Professor Deirdre Hughes OBE
Deirdre is a leading international careers specialist. She has worked in four UK universities and has written over 125 articles and book chapters. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Warwick, Institute for Employment Research (IER) and Director of dmh associates. In 2022-2023, she chaired a formal review of the matrix quality Standard on behalf of the Department for Education (DfE) and The Growth Company. She was awarded a Legacy Fellowship by the UK Career Development Institute (2023). Deirdre is also Vice-President of the International Association of Vocational and Educational Guidance (IAEVG). Internationally, she has worked for Cedefop,2019 – 2023; OECD Career Readiness and ODICY programmes (2022 – ongoing); and International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the European Training Foundation (2022). She was awarded an OBE in the 2012 Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to career guidance. She has led research and consultancy projects across the UK for public, private and third sector organisations.
Dr Chris Percy
Chris Percy is a leading economist, strategy consultant, and careers researcher with expertise in quantitative methods. His experience of the education sector dates back to 2008 while working as a civil servant for the Department for Children, Schools and Families on secondary education reform and the strengthening of links between schools, universities, colleges and employers to improve progression pathways. He has led individual and team projects that span a range of organisations in the careers and education sector, including the Careers and Enterprise Company, the Education and Employers Taskforce, IntoUniversity, the Edge Foundation and the Open University, as well as pro bono engagements via Impetus-PEF for charities like Adviza, ActionTutors and the Dallaglio Foundation. Chris’s recent clients in private practice have included the World Bank (analysis of civil service skills requirements), Social Finance and King’s College London.
Assistant Professor Wendy Pearson
Wendy Pearson is an Assistant Professor at the University of Warwick. Wendy leads the Career Development and Coaching Studies Progamme and draws on her 20(+!) years in career practice. She has been researching the topic of AI in Career Practice from the point of view of a non-technical end user, but has developed some technical ability along the way which has been stretched to the limit in creating a guidance chatbot that aims to use career construction theory to support career exploration.
Marianne Wilson
Marianne Wilson is studying towards a PhD, sponsored by Skills Development Scotland and the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science. Her PhD project explores human-centred approaches for the responsible design and evaluation of career information chatbots. She has a long-standing interest in human factors and social impacts of information technology spanning a range of academic disciplines, including an MA (Hons) in English Literature & History, MSc in Business Information Technology and MSc by Research in Science & Technology Studies. She also has experience in enterprise data governance in a multi-national organisation.
