This document discusses how liberal arts education provides skills to help students develop career mobility, such as critical thinking and adaptability. However, students often do not recognize how to apply these skills. Career construction theory posits that individuals build careers by imposing meaning on experiences and adapting over time. It has three components: vocational personality, life themes, and career adaptability. Internships can guide students to examine values, identify skill use, and reflect on experiences to recognize career applicability and prepare for future transitions. Relationship building throughout the internship process is emphasized.
1. Helping Students Develop
Career Mobility Skills
Ross Garmil, EdM
Candidate, Assistant Director Internship Program
Becker Career Center
Union College
2. Career Trends
New jobs and new fields
11 job changes in lifetime
Greater employment opportunity
Greater personal responsibility
3. Benefits of Liberal Arts Education
Critical Thinking
Analysis
Communication
Adaptability
Lifelong Learning
4. Benefits of Liberal Arts Education
(cont'd)
“The formula for businesses trying to
compete in today’s economy is simple: hire
employees with mental agility, leadership
and passion to navigate constant change –
in other words, hire those who are liberally
educated.”
A.G. Lafley, former Proctor & Gamble CEO
(quoted in “A Roadmap for Transforming the College-To-Career Experience”)
5. Challenge for Liberal Arts
Students
Students initially unprepared to apply skills
Focus almost exclusively on degree
completion
Begin work with Career Centers late
6. Career Construction Theory
Individuals build careers by imposing
meaning on their vocational behavior and
occupational experiences
Three components
Vocational Personality
Life Themes
Career Adaptability
From “The Theory and Practice of Career Construction” by Mark L. Savickas.
Featured in “Career Development and Counseling” Brown & Lent, eds. 2004
7. Career Construction Theory:
Vocational Personality
Career related abilities, needs, values and
interests
Viewed as adaptable strategy, not inherent
traits
Development begins in personal/family
life
Dynamic processes that represent
possibilities
Can select strategies as situation merits
8. Career Construction Theory:
Life Themes
Choice of occupation an extension of
individual's self-perceived identity
Important for individual to see his/her
career as significant to self and society
Understanding career as extension of life
theme helps provide meaning to work
Belief that one's work is important to
others promotes positive sense of self
9. Career Construction Theory:
Career Adaptability
Ability to solve unfamiliar, complex, and ill-
defined tasks
Adaptability composed of four specific
attitudes, beliefs & competencies:
Concern
Control
Curiosity
Confidence
10. How can this apply to Internships?
Encourage students to examine personal
values and consider possible career paths
during application process
Provide students tools to identify and
reflect on Internship as a learning
experience and to recognize the liberal arts
skills being used during the placement
Maintain contact with students throughout
and beyond internship
11. Summary
Liberal Arts education provides skills to
help students prepare for career mobility in
their lives, but often not identified at time
Career Construction theory considers how
students can develop their own sense of
self and career to adapt to job transitions
Relationship building can guide students to
prepare for career mobility throughout
Internship process
12. Bibliography
Becker Career Center. (2009). Guide to Career Planning. Retrieved from
http://www.union.edu/offices/career/_documents/guide-to-career-planning-final-07-11.pdf
CareersNZ. (n.d.). Career Theory and Models. Retrieved from
http://www.careers.govt.nz/educators-practitioners/career-practice/career-theory-models/
Rethinking Success. (2013) A Roadmap for Transforming the College-to-Career
Experience: A Crowdsourced Paper. Winston-Salem, NC: Chan, A. & Derry, T. (Eds.).
Neault, R.A. (2000). Planning for Serendipity? Career Management for Changing
Times. Retrieved from http://onestep.on.ca/resource/files2/Career%20Management
%20for%20Changing%20Times.pdf
Savickas, M.L. (2004). The Theory and Practice of Career Construction. In S.D. Brown
and R.W. Lent (Eds.), Career Development and Counseling: Putting Theory and
Research to Work (42-70). Hoboken, NJ: J.D. Wiley & Sons.
Savickas, M.L. (n.d.). Career Construction Theory. Retrieved from
http://www.vocopher.com/pdfs/careerConstruction.pdf
