Enquire Within^®

Career Choice a Grid Example

Career choice and career counselling are simple but very effective uses of Enquire Within^®. You can use it to help people choose a career, prepare for career change and/or identify the characteristics of their ideal careers. Here we show how repertory grid with Enquire Within, helps people develop and use a framework for choosing careers.

Background

In summary, the grid interview involves the asking of a series of comparison and contrasting questions like `how are career A and B similar that is different from career C.' then refining and analysing the results. The careers application of the grid interview is a simple but very effective application of grid but this practical example assumes a basic knowledge of grid, including Laddering.

The example relates to career choice but could easily be modified to explore thoughts about employer choice.

Career Alternatives

In this example you wish to explore career alternatives (elements). In the early stages it is necessary that the clients knows about the careers being explored. This is done by asking the clients sets of questions (element eliciting questions) designed to elicit known careers of different types.

The following generic set of element eliciting questions would provide a basic set of careers for the repertory grid comparison and contrast process.

Name a career I believe I would enjoy
Name a career I believe I would not like
Name my best friend's career
Name another career I believe I would enjoy
Name another career I believe I would not like
Name another friend's career
Name the career my parents/spouse/partner would like me to have
Name the career my teacher/mentor would like me to have
Name the career I dream/used to dream about but probably won't have

Other questions regarding `ideal' elements such as MY IDEAL CAREER or THE WORST CAREER FOR ME can be used but are usually best introduced part way through the interview

Qualifying Questions

In order to focus the clients' attention qualifying statements are used. Typically, in this example these would be ...in terms of the skills I would need and ...in terms of how I would feel about them. Thus the comparing and contrasting questions would be of the form `how are career A and B similar that is different from career C in terms of the skills I would need.'

Thus clients form sets of bipolar constructs that encapsulate their knowledge about careers they know.

Laddering

Laddering Up

Use `Which do you prefer, X or Y?'

Laddering Down

Ladder down with:`Tell me more about how careers that are X differ from careers that are Y, in terms of...' using both of the qualifying questions.

Analysis

A very simple analysis is counting the absolute number of constructs. A small number of constructs (around less than 15) would indicate that the client has little knowledge about careers in general. But the client would have a much better idea of where the gaps in knowledge are and could be advised, armed with that knowledge, to find out more about a wider variety of careers and the skills they require before repeating the interview and choosing a career.

If the count of constructs is larger, then proceeding to rating and dendritic analysis would reveal which careers are seen to be similar, the characteristics of favoured and less favoured careers and how they compare with MY IDEAL CAREER' or `THE WORST CAREER FOR ME'. The dendritic analysis would reveal which constructs are strongly related leading to further explorataion and challenging the validity of those relationships.

Related Resources

Using Personal Construct Theory in Guidance
Career Choice and Career Counselling
UOW study reveals workplace discrimination. An example of a Repertory Grid study.

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