Savickas Career Construction Theory

In taking a holistic, self-aware, and life-long contextual approach to career development, the career construction theory, or CCT (Savickas, 2009) recognises the need for us to take an active role in how we build and manage our careers. We actively manage our careers through foundational work in creating blocks from which we can find skills, make decisions, adapt and manage transitions, and factor in other aspects of our lives. We are able to work this way through four adapt-abilities: concern, control, curiosity and confidence (Savickas & Porfeli, 2012).

• We are concerned about our career future 
• We take control by being self-directed
• We are curious about opportunities for on-going learning
• We develop confidence to pursue what we want in our career.

We have attitudes about each dimension, require a competence to apply each adapt-ability, need to take action through a behaviour, and may run into a problem. For example, taking control requires us to be decisive; we have to learn how to make decisions; we must behave in ways that pursue our own interests; and what may derail us is prevarication (Barnes, 2019).

(Image: Barnes, 2019).

As our “occupational prospects seem far less definable and predictable, with job transitions more frequent” (Savickas, 2009) it is increasingly important to have career theory which reflect today’s changing world of work and the way we live. in the 2018 Survey of Work, only 38% percent of surveyees stayed in the same job for over five years, dropping down to 25% at the 10-year mark (Statistics New Zealand, 2019). Further, 10% of respondents hold multiple jobs, with 9% in temporary roles (Statistics New Zealand, 2019). And remember, this is before the Covid-19 pandemic.

As we navigate an uncertain world, it is important to have a strong sense of self-concept so we are able to own our choices and direction (SACDA South Africa, 2021). Using a case study to explains career construction theory, Savickas relates that the first session with the client is a career construction interview based on five themes to elicit the narrative from his client. This is followed by a later session to reconstruct these stories into a life portrait, which is then applied to explain the client's career transitions (SACDA South Africa, 2021).

We utilise the Career Construction Theory when we draw out a client's unique qualities and learn their life story (Savickas, 2009), even if we don't know we are doing so.

Sam

References:

Barnes, E. (2019, May 19). Module 1: Career Theories. In Integrating Career Focused Counseling [course]. https://careerfocusedcounselingproject.wordpress.com/2019/05/19/module-1-career-theories/

SACDA South Africa. (2021). Prof Mark Savickas on Life Design. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EneCSox5NiY

Savickas, M. L. (2012). Life design: A paradigm for career intervention in the 21st century. Journal of Counseling & Development, 90(1), 13-19.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1556-6676.2012.00002.x

Savickas, M.L. & Porfeli, E. J. (2012). Career Adapt-Abilities Scale: Construction, reliability, and measurement equivalence across 13 countries. Journal of Vocational Behaviour, 80(3), 661-673. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2012.01.011

Statistics New Zealand. (2018). Survey of working life: 2018. https://www.stats.govt.nz/reports/survey-of-working-life-2018