Unit 6

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Athabasca University, Athabasca *

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300

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Arts Humanities

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Oct 30, 2023

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1 Unit 6 Reflection Assignment Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Athabasca University PSYC300: Theories of Career Development Tutor: Louis Svenningsen October 5, 2023

2 Introduction The first part of this reflection will highlight the client’s (that is, my) response to external factors, how they have influenced my career development, and how I have responded to them. In the second part of this reflection, I will describe the benefits and insights gained from a client’s perspective and identify relevant advantages and disadvantages through a practitioner’s lens. Lastly, I will analyze the socio-cultural theory that underpins the client’s results. Part I: Activity Question 1: Perhaps contrary to what I thought before doing this exercise, I was surprised to realize that I have little control over my life and “accept whatever comes my way.” For instance, my family immigrated to Canada in the mid-1990s and was working class. As a result, the messages I received from an early age were geared towards choosing a “traditional” career that would provide a stable life. This was something that I just accepted as being a fact, and regardless of my interests and passions, a job was simply a mechanism to have a stable life with a stable income. The second item I identified was the 2008/2009 financial crisis, which occurred just before I graduated from university. Once again, this event reinforced the need for a traditional, stable career. In hindsight, I accepted this as a fact, and it continued to support the message from my parents. Question 2:

3 My responses to these factors were effective in the sense that I did have a stable career path with a stable income. If the goal was a “stable career,” I simply accepted the external factors outside my control and continued with my career plans, taking whatever came my way. Question 3: If I could go back and “do over” any of my responses, I think it would be not to unquestioningly accept the message I received from my parents as “fact” and to put more credence to what I am interested in, better understand my personality, and ultimately pick a career that is a good fit. In a sense, I would apply some of the principles from the Trait-and- Factor theory instead of having the singular voice of my parents dictating my career. I would go back and take a much more thoughtful approach to planning my career, taking into account advice from my parents and doing thoughtful research into careers and where a potential fit may lie. Question 4: How I used to respond to my career, as noted above, is no longer how I respond. I think that with some maturity, personal development, and career experience – I now feel like I have control over my life (and career), and critically – I exercise that control. For example, in January 2023, my previous employer moved from a work-from-home set-up to a fully in-office set-up. This was not a fit for me, as it meant an hour-long commute each way and would significantly impact my time and work-life balance. With the understanding now that my work-life balance is important, I spoke to my manager at the time, highlighting how this is an issue. Upon receiving a “boilerplate” corporate response to return-to-office mandates, I once again highlighted my

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4 desire to stay with my employer – however, I needed an adjustment to this policy. Upon recognizing that this was not something I could change, I began to look for another job that would reduce my commute. Within one month of the return-to-work mandates at my former employer, I found a similar role at a company that allowed me to have a hybrid schedule and was a 15-minute walk away. Again, this is a clear example of how I now respond to external factors by showing agency and initiative – not simply accepting them. Part II: Critique / Reflection Benefits & Insights – Client Perspective I thought this was a particularly insightful exercise from a client's perspective as we are often (as people) so focused on controlling – or getting back control if we feel it has been lost – our careers. This exercise was then valuable for two reasons – the first is that you may take steps to recognize that there are/were external factors that you had no control over, and these factors had material impacts on both life and career. Secondly, the prompt to consider one’s response to external factors starts to highlight patterns but also can provide an opportunity to consider how one responds and why that may be. This means that simply recognizing that one accepts externalities or takes the initiative is an essential insight for a client that may help to unravel deeper-rooted patterns of behaviour and, hopefully, how these patterns permeate and drive various aspects of life and career. Advantages & Disadvantages – Practitioner Perspective

5 This exercise is a double-edged sword as having the client recognize some of their behaviour patterns can energize the right person while potentially being detrimental to others. As a result, the practitioner should first understand the client and how they may respond to this. The advantage is that for some people, this exercise may illuminate the external factors that have impacted them – and by having these realizations, they can potentially start to work through challenges. This same exercise can demoralize other clients by making them feel powerless and that life is outside of their control, and any efforts to impact it may feel futile. This by no means implies that this is not a worthwhile exercise for a practitioner to use with a client. Still, it may mean that the practitioner must emphasize developing a therapeutic alliance with the client while trying to gauge their readiness. To further ensure client success, there may be clients whom the practitioner may need to spend time first highlighting to the client how this exercise may help, even simply empathizing that it may feel like a demoralizing exercise, and highlighting what kind of insights this may bring and what the goal is. Theoretical Constructs The critical theoretical construct relevant to interpreting the clients (that is, my) experience is the Status Attainment Theory, which “concerns issues regarding the relative role of achievement and social status in influencing occupational selection” (Sharf, 2013). Several vital studies also highlight the influence of family expectations and how this can impact young adults' careers and concerns (Sharf, 2013). In my case, this was very much the case. My parents had “good” careers in Ukraine and a high standard of life. Upon moving to Canada, I can only assume that it surprised them that their educational credentials did not translate at an equivalent level, and language barriers meant limited employment opportunities. It could not

6 have been easy to reset their socio-economic standing and social status. When it came time for my older sister and me to choose our careers, their messaging to pursue “stable, traditional” careers were likely unconsciously (or perhaps consciously) driven attempts for their children to raise our social status by way of career success ultimately. This was reinforced by their ecstatic response when I graduated from university and lined up a job at a prestigious consulting firm, working in a high-rise office building on Bay St. in Toronto. The theory also notes the influence of school and the role of educational achievement as a primary mechanism to increase socio-economic status (Sharf, 2013). Again, this applies quite consistently to my experience, as my parents' messaging was rooted in attending a “prestigious” university to get a good job.

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