Guidance Interviews

About

This section lists and links to research studies into one-to-one career guidance interviews or coaching sessions, which offer learning opportunities or the chances for using evidence and ideas in approaches

In doing so, we have noted the particular insight that these different sources might offer to practice.

Research can evaluate interventions at different levels of granularity when assessing effectiveness: either a) within the context of a wider system or process, b) as a "black box" - to be compared with other "black boxes", c) or looking at the various design decisions within the intervention to examine their implications for the client. All likely merit consideration when evaluating practices.

As well as publications showing effective tactics for this type of career intervention, we have included several resources form other media, including talks, interviews and case studies. These may not be “academically'' rigorous, but can provoke reflection and understanding of further perspectives.

Key learning highlights

Some of the highlights from the research into this type of intervention type include that:

• Studies some years ago, into the requisites for successful interventions, suggested 4-5 sessions as being required to achieve impact (Brown and Crane, 2000).
• Career support interventions that involve a counsellor are found to be more impactful than those that don’t. (Whiston and Brecheisen, 2003)
• Setting expectations prior to career guidance is an important prerequisite for client expectations (Millar and Brotherton, 2010).
• People from different backgrounds and cultures may interpret their career stories differently, which requires attention of the career adviser. (McMahon et al, 2010).
• Various particular exercises within career discussions have been shown effective for increased confluence and clarity. For instance, using a narrative approach based on Career Construction theory has been shown to help clients to develop self-confidence, direction, confirmation, and a sense of encouragement (Rehfuss et al, 2011).
• Career guidance interviews have long term positive benefits of over a year (e.g. Perdix 2012).
• The exploration of meaning and values appear particularly valuable exercises in career interviews aiming to support more transformational sorts of change (e.g. Yates et al, 2017).
• Other theories and disciplines, related to cognitive information processing theory and neuro-research have been shown as promising areas to develop 121 career interventions, but have arguably not been fully exploited e.g. Dozier & Osborn (2018) and Phillips (2024).