Ideas for Career Practitioners: Celebrating Excellence in Career Practice

Edited by Mary McMahon & Wendy Patton

This book represents a compilation of ideas that career practitioners use in their everyday work and covers all facets of what is broadly termed career guidance. 

Presenting a smorgasboard of 48 ideas from over 50 experienced career practitioners, researchers and theoreticians from six countries, this book is an essential resource for everyday work in the career guidance field, including counselling, programs, assessment and education.

Practical activities, instruments, methodologies, reviews and ideas are presented in an easy-to-read format suitable for a range of client groups including adults, adolescents, primary aged children, rural and remote communities, and indigenous populations.

Topics include:

• Vocational assessment and counselling

• Career exploration amongst rural disadvantaged children

• Entrepreneurship for university students

• Identifying skills

• Career insight in higher education

• Using narrative with clients in remote areas

• Resilience with youth in high risk settings

• ACT techniques in career contexts

• Organising career fairs

• Self-directed work search

• Career transition

• Structured mentoring for girls

• Medico-legal vocational assessment

From the Foreword

 "Ideas for Career Practitioners was first published in 2003 to celebrate Australian career practice and showcased a range of ideas from Australian career development practitioners. The 2003 publication was such a valuable resource that requests by practitioners to obtain copies of the book continued well after it was no longer available. Such demand encouraged us to produce a new edition of the book.

Unlike the original book which comprised only ideas from Australian authors, the current book contains ideas from six different countries that are all witnessing growth in the field of career development. In particular, this book contains ideas from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, China and Singapore and is a timely reminder of the expansion of career development within countries and also to countries where career development has traditionally been less evident. Despite the national settings from which the ideas originate, practitioners will find that the ideas presented in this book transcend national boundaries and thus reflect a truly international discipline. 

As two people who have worked as practitioners, researchers and theoreticians, and who continue to teach through our presentations and through university courses, we often hear the call for practical examples in relation to career counselling, conduct of programs, and use of the vast information source in the career area. ”