Career Buzz radio recently explored the value of career conversations. Professor Frans Meijers is a top researcher in the area of career guidance in the Netherlands. He shared with listeners all that’s wrong about career conversations with youth in school, and how to right it. But why doesn’t the education system work to help youth with this important task? “It doesn’t work because you only can build your [career] identity, you can only develop your heart on the basis of real life experience and schools don’t offer real life experiences.” This episode is really worth a listen.

CareerCycles Tip: Want to help your teenager or young adult develop their career? Professor Frans Meijers says: help them engage in experiences then talk to them about it. Find out how to implement Prof Meijers’ simple formula: Listen to the whole interview Listen to our inspiring past shows

Frans Meijers, PhD, is a top researcher in the area of career guidance in the Netherlands. He’s also professor of pedagogy and career development at the University of The Hague. His research shows that career learning takes place as a result of experiential learning and a dialogue about those experiences.
This finding has led Frans to develop professional training programs for teachers in how to have true career conversations. Frans talked about his research showing career dialogue as a central part of any powerful environment for career learning.

Narrative career approaches are also brought to life in university level courses designed and led by both Frans and our other guest, writer, poet and visiting professor Reinekke Lengelle. Reinekke is a writer, poet, and visiting graduate professor at Athabasca University in Alberta. She designs and teaches graduate courses in the area of writing for personal and professional development. Her co-written article about Narratives at Work with Frans Meijers, was recently published in the British Journal of Career Guidance and Counselling. Reinekke shared highlights of their transformation-through-writing model which features a four step process: sensing, sifting, focusing, understanding.

Tune in, learn, enjoy, as you listen in on these two experts. Career Buzz is on Wednesdays 11am-noon Eastern, listen live from your computer at www.ciut.fm or tune to 89.5 FM in Toronto.

*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA