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Chaotic Careers: Surviving and Thriving Following a Career Transition
Sharon PeakeDirector of Talent & Assessment, Reed Elsevier
Business Psychologist & Career Coach, Sharon Peake Consulting
Chadi MoussaBusiness Psychologist, Sharon Peake Consulting
Freelance Business Psychologist
Overview of Session
1. The modern careers context
2. Psychological theory relevant to careers
3. Learning from the natural sciences: Chaos Theory
4. Putting theory into practice: an exercise
5. Questions
The modern careers context is chaotic
• Market volatility: 8.0% unemployment – highest in UK in 17 years (Office for National Statistics, March 2011)
• Wholesale industry change: offshoring, outsourcing, recession, new industries
• More mobility: We’re moving jobs more often (*Office for National Statistics, 2003; **CIPD, 2009)
– 1996 – average 5 years service*
– 2001 – average 4 years service*
– 2009 – 48% <2 years service**
• Changing ‘psychological contracts’: A ‘job for life’ no longer exists
• Unsettled workforce: 21% of employees currently looking to change jobs / 37% in the next year (CIPD, 2010)
The different perspectives on careers…
Psychological...
Sociological...
Economic...
And many, many others...
There are numerous theories of career development & career choice
• Person- Environment Fit theories (1900s – 1970s)
• Developmental / Stage theories (1950s – 1980s)
• Structural theories (1968)
• Organisational theories (1978)
• Boundaryless career (1996)
• Postmodern & Constructivist theories
Learning from the natural sciences: Chaos Theory and ‘Chaos Theory of Careers’
(Pryor & Bright, 2003; 2006; 2007)
1. Open systems• Individuals and our environments are dynamic, open
systems
2. Combines order and chance• System behaviour is unpredictable yet also self-organising • Able to find underlying order in apparently random data
3. Butterfly effect / ‘sensitive dependence on initial conditions’• The more complex the system, the greater the impact of
changes in initial conditions
4. Non-linearity• A change in one part of the system does not necessarily have direct causal
impacts on other parts of the system
Exercise: How has chance helped you?
• Think of a positive event in your career in which chance played a key role, e.g.:
– working on a project which gave you an important experience– Attending an event (like this one!) which later influenced the course of your
career– meeting someone at a social event who introduced you to a new job
• Now list one thing that you did to help seize this chance event, e.g.:– engaging friends and contacts to help you change job– taking on some unpaid work to broaden your skills– being open to trying new things
Summary
• The careers environment is unpredictable and chaotic
• Traditional approaches to managing career issues have merit but are not sufficient
• Chaos Theory of Careers helps us recognise and benefit from the unpredictable influences on our careers
• By drawing on a combination of theories and research we can best prepare for, and manage, career transitions
References
• Borg, T., Bright, J., & Pryor, R. (2006). The butterfly model of careers: Illustrating how planning and chance can be integrated in the careers of secondary school students. Australian Journal of Career Development 15 (3), 54-59.
• CIPD. (2010). Employee outlook [online], Quarterly survey report. Autumn 2010. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Available at: http://www.cipd.co.uk/surveys [Accessed 5 December 2010].
• CIPD. (2009). Recruitment, retention and turnover [online], Annual survey report 2009. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Available at: http://www.cipd.co.uk/surveys [Accessed 5 December 2010].
• Levy, D. (1994). Chaos theory and strategy: Theory, application, and managerial implications. Strategic Management Journal, 15, 167-178.
• Office for National Statistics (November 2003). Job mobility and job tenure in the UK. Retrieved November 20, 2010 from http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/labour_market_trends/jobmobility_nov03.pdf
• Office for National Statistics (20 March 2011). Labour market: Employment. Retrieved March 20, 2011 from http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=12
• Pryor, R.G.L., & Bright, J.E.H. (2003). The chaos theory of careers. Australian Journal of Career Development, 12(3), 12-20
• Pryor, R.G.L., & Bright, J.E.H. (2006). Counseling chaos: Techniques for practitioners. Journal of employment counseling, 43, 2-16
• Pryor, R.G.L., & Bright, J.E.H. (2007a). The chaos theory of careers: Development, application, and possibilities. Career Planning and Adult Development Journal, 23(2), 49-64
• Pryor, R.G.L., & Bright, J.E.H. (2007b). Applying chaos theory to careers: Attraction and attractors. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 71, 375-400
