Low qualified and low skilled: the need for context sensitive careers support

ABSTRACT

The research investigation into the career trajectories of low-skilled, mid-career individuals in Europe, on which this symposium focused, has emphasised the importance of career support. Participants sometimes had not even completed their initial school qualifications. Often, though not always, they had significant skill deficits. The majority of participants typically had not had any consistent access to high-quality support services at critical turning points in their career trajectories. In some cases, the inappropriate and/or poor quality of the career support had become part of the problem. Findings indicate that career support services for these individuals must be based on context-sensitive frameworks for practice, which integrate knowledge and understanding of the broad social and economic factors that impact their career trajectories.

KEYWORDS:

• Careers guidance
• low-qualified
• low-skilled

Notes on contributors

Professor Jenny Bimrose is based at the Institute for Employment Research, University of Warwick. With over 30 years of experience teaching, researching and managing in higher education, on-going research interests include: the decision-making styles and career trajectories of individuals across Europe; the implications for career guidance of older women's career development; the role of career adaptability for mid-career changers (http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ier/people/jbimrose/).

Professor Alan Brown joined IER in 1996 and from 2002 to 2009 was Associate Director of the ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) with responsibility for workplace learning and professional learning. His interests focus on career development; changing work-related identities; career adaptability (ability to make successful transitions and perform effectively in a range of contexts); workplace learning; learning processes (e.g. coaching and supporting the learning of others); learning across domains (practical; cognitive and affective); and computer-supported collaborative learning (https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ier/people/abrown/).

Professor Rachel Mulvey is the Associate Dean of School and also holds a personal chair in career guidance. She is a chartered psychologist and associate fellow of the British Psychological Society (BPS). A principal fellow of the Higher Education Academy, she was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2013.Current national research focuses on how people transfer skills and knowledge from one domain to another. As an Associate Fellow of the Institute for Employment Research at the University of Warwick, Rachel has led the French team researching labour market transitions across Europe (http://www.uel.ac.uk/psychology/staff/rachelmulvey/).

ORCID

Alan Brown http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1936-6315