One of the things that makes us human is the fact that we feel emotions. How we feel plays in a role in everything we do, so it comes as no surprise that throughout one’s career, one encounters a kaleidoscope of emotions, such as uncertainty or eagerness when choosing a career path, nervousness for interviews, excitement for a new job, a thrill when accomplishing something new or worry over the loss of a job.
It follows that career practitioners feel emotions too. Meeting a new client can feel exciting and anxiety-inducing, seeing a client struggle can inspire sympathy or pain, and watching a client achieve their goal can feel satisfying and thrilling.
For all the feeling humans do, we do a lot of thinking too – but we don’t always consider clients’ and career practitioners’ emotions when structuring career support sessions. The following resources can help career practitioners understand the role of emotions and how to navigate them as they provide career support.
Know of other resources we should share on emotion and careers work? Share your ideas in the comments section below!
Resources
5 Ways to Keep Going when the Job Search is Getting You Down (The Muse) [Article]
This article thoroughly describes the emotional rollercoaster experienced by many jobseekers. In addition to providing an understanding of what a jobseeker may be feeling, this article also provides five tips career practitioners can share with clients who are looking for an encouraging boost as they hunt for their next job.
Career Helping: Harnessing Perspective and Emotion in Everyday Practice (Kris Magnusson) [Book]
Canadian professor Kris Magnusson created this book in the hopes of guiding professionals who work in the career development field. In this book, Dr. Magnusson – who has worked in career development since 1980 – recognizes the value of existing career support strategies and highlights the importance of also considering clients’ perceptions and emotions in the context of career development. Dr. Magnusson also includes strategies career practitioners can use to “harness the power of perception and emotion” in their own practice.
Emotion in career contexts: Challenges for theory and research (Journal of Vocational Behavior) [Article]
This article focuses on the importance of conducting more research regarding the role emotions play in career development, but it may provide career professionals with more information regarding why this is so important to consider when helping clients.
Expression and management of emotions in career counselling interactions (Taylor & Francis Online) [Research paper]
Based on information gathered from 64 interviews, this research paper explores how clients experience and express emotions while sharing their experiences during career support sessions, and how career professionals react. Isabelle Olry-Louis, the paper’s author and a professor of Vocational Psychology and Career Counselling in France, argues that it’s important to consider emotions in the context of career counselling and that career professionals can play a positive role in shaping clients’ emotional reactions.
The Experience of Emotions During the Job Search and Choice Process Among Novice Job Seekers (Journal of Career Development) [Research article]
Based on analysis of 41 jobseekers’ first-person accounts, the authors who conducted this research found that jobseekers whose job search recollection involved emotional language used a less criteria-driven approach to their search, whereas jobseekers whose recollection was not heavy with emotional language more commonly used a criteria-based strategy. In this article, the authors explore these findings and the impact emotions have on job search, choice process and job search counselling.
The power of emotion, language and collaboration: A Cannexus21 reflection (CareerWise) [Blog]
In this blog post, career counsellor Jenny Lee Northey provides a summary of CERIC’s most recent Cannexus21 conference, which includes useful tidbits from Kris Magnusson’s session on perception and emotions in the context of career helping. While this section of the article is brief, it provides career professionals with insights that may transform the way they share information and consider emotions in career support sessions. Northey also refers to a few tools career practitioners can use to help clients navigate change.
There are two elephants in this room: Career helpers have emotions too (CareerWise) [Blog]
In this blog post, Dr. Kris Magnusson explores the role of emotions in career support sessions. Dr. Magnusson explains that clients’ emotions and perceptions can affect how they absorb information, arguing that emotions are the “elephants in the room” and that avoiding acknowledging them makes it more challenging for career professionals to help clients embrace positive change. Dr. Magnusson also talks about how career practitioners’ emotions and perceptions play a role as well, and provides five tips to help career professionals navigate their emotions when they are helping others.
Additional reading/viewing:
- Readings in Positive Psychology (CCPA)
- The Science of Well-Being (Yale) [Course]
- Flow, the secret to happiness (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) [TED Talk]
