The career construction interview

Abstract

INTRODUCTION The Career Construction Interview (CCI) comprises a qualitative assessment method that forms a central component of career construction counselling. Career construction counselling entails an interpersonal process of helping people author career stories that connect their self-concepts to work roles, fit work into life, and make meaning through work (Savickas, 2011). Using the narrative paradigm, career construction counselling begins with a CCI that comprises six questions; one question each about act (counselling goals), actor (personality, self, or social reputation), agent (manifest interests), author (script for linking self to setting), advice (guidance to self), and arc (central problem or preoccupation). Each question prompts individuals to tell small stories about themselves that convey who they are and who they wish to become. The career counsellor and client collaboratively shape the themes culled from these microstories into a macro-narrative about the person’s central preoccupation, motives, goals, adaptive strategies, and self-view. In this co-construction process, clients empower themselves to author life-career stories that enhance their experiences of work as personally meaningful and socially useful. They may then use work to actively master what they passively suffer. The present chapter considers the background, content, use, and research evidence in support of the CCI. Readers wanting to learn more about the complete process of career construction counselling may read a definitive book (Savickas, 2011) and chapters (Savickas, 2013; Taber, 2013) as well as study a demonstration of the process (Savickas, 2006).