By Chris Webb, Career Consultant, Freelance Careers Writer and Podcaster
‘Personalisation’ – it can be a somewhat nebulous term. Tech founders frequently extol the virtues of AI in ‘personalising’ our experiences, from learning languages to better understanding our health data, and this almost ‘human’ role for technology like AI is seeping more and more into person-centred professions, from education and healthcare to our own field of Career Development and Employability.¹
Indeed, as professionals we know both anecdotally and through survey data that many individuals are turning to AI tools as a proxy for what was once only conceivable as ‘human’ support, advice and guidance, with AI being commonly consulted by users for therapy, coaching, careers advice, wellbeing support and other deeply personal subjects.²
Users are also relying on AI more for initial information searches and answers to questions relating to the topics above, in spite of existing issues with data accuracy, bias and fabricated content that continue to plague Large Language Models like ChatGPT, Claude and Google Gemini, even as the systems continue to improve.
I have seen this first hand in my work as a Career Consultant in Higher Education but have also heard these same observations reflected by Career Development and Employability professionals working across the industry, from Secondary Education and FE to HE and adult guidance – from prospective university students asking ChatGPT what institution would suit them best (and being given incorrect advice regarding the courses that would actually be accessible to them, based on their academic performance) to international jobseekers relying on AI-generated responses to help them figure out how to convert their experience and qualifications from another country to the UK market (often resulting in muddled or incomplete advice), reaching for AI in this sort of context is now an option that many people are choosing to engage with.
While the increasing prevalence of AI tools offering ‘personalised’ career development and employability support has the potential to inculcate existential angst amongst professionals in our industry, I believe it also presents an opportunity for us to highlight the incalculable value we provide to our clients through genuine personal connection, empathy and holistic support.
I’m hopeful that the following two stories will illustrate this point, better than any AI summary could (and if not, perhaps I need to reconsider my future as a writer!)
Story #1 – ‘Progress’ and ‘Success’ Are Never One-Size-Fits-All
As a Careers and Employability professional working in Higher Education (HE), I work as part of a central, on-demand service for students and graduates and subsequently I don’t always have the opportunity to see clients more than once. The nature of this sometimes ‘one-shot’ support can make it easy for clients to default to viewing our service as simply information provision and approaching us with often more transactional queries (for example, ‘I need to know how to find a job in _’), even if there are knottier threads behind this presenting issue that might need unpicking. For example, while many clients I see will often lead with a problem such as the one framed above (e.g. job hunting), careful exploration regularly uncovers a slew of important factors that the client may not yet have reflected on in their career thinking, for example ‘Why am I particularly motivated to work in this industry area?’ or ‘Am I ready to start looking for work right now or am I thinking about this simply because it feels like the most obvious next move?’.
Patience, empathy and gentle challenge are all tools that Careers and Employability professionals utilise to work with the whole person, not just their presenting issues, and are what enable us to create the personal connections that can really make a difference in our clients’ lives, as well as differentiating what we do from the more transactional act of information giving (which can be emulated to an extent using technology such as AI).
This process can naturally take time, but it is time well spent.
In 2023, I led a pilot coaching programme for recent graduates at the institution where I work, entitled Graduate Boost, that was designed for graduates who were one year on from finishing their studies and either unemployed, underemployed or looking to make a career pivot. The programme involved six one-hour sessions with a Careers and Employability professional, in addition to providing optional group workshops and a suite of relevant online resources.
While the group sessions and on-demand resources were only used sparingly by the graduate cohort who signed up to the programme, the one-to-one coaching was extremely popular and the graduates’ reflections from engaging in this more in-depth, personalised support, provides a clear indication of the difference the personal touch can make and why context matters so much in our work.
For starters, graduates are not a homogenous group – in our cohort for the programme, our team worked with everyone from 21-year-old graduates who had found themselves stuck in low-paid, precarious work unconnected to their degree studies or career interests, to experienced professionals in areas like healthcare and education who were seeking a career pivot to benefit their lives, relationships and personal wellbeing, both within and outside of work. Throw in the raft of recent challenges facing graduates, from the fluctuations of the post-Covid labour market to the impact of Generative AI and a national cost-of-living crisis, and it’s easy to see why context matters in this sort of coaching, as indeed it does in all Careers and Employability work.
Having additional time to get to know our coachees and establish clearly the holistic aims they had for their time on the coaching programme – for example, building confidence, testing out career ideas and exploring ways to meet other professionals, not simply securing employment – allowed us to better personalise and scaffold the support we provided to graduates across the six sessions, presenting us with a different perspective on what ‘successful outcomes’ from this activity could look like, in comparison to how this presents in one-off support sessions, where there is often a time pressure in which to help people move forward, or clients feel they must leave the appointment with something immediately tangible.
For our Graduate Boost cohort, this varied from individuals gaining career clarity around options they had been considering for some time, building confidence in how they spoke about themselves professionally and sometimes simply taking initial small steps towards rediscovering a passion or moving away from a toxic workplace, that had previously felt out of reach.
As Careers and Employability professionals, these sort of ‘outcomes’ are why we do what we do, and arguably why a personal approach and a deep understanding of a client’s individual context are timeless qualities for professionals working in this field.
Story #2 – Context Matters, Whatever We Are Doing
As much as the work of Careers and Employability professionals is more than simply providing information to clients, there are of course occasions when we will do just that, either because an individual has specifically requested this or because we may have recommendations that we feel could unlock a client’s thinking.
However, even in these scenarios, context matters.
Recently, I delivered a lecture to Computer Science students in the 2nd year of their studies at the institution where I work. At the end of the talk, I was approached by a number of younger students with questions regarding upcoming careers events, job opportunities and how to access support from our Placements team, all of which were relatively straightforward examples of information provision.
And then I met C, a mature student who had recently switched to an IT degree, following a 10+ year career in another field. C was extremely keen to gain experience in the field of Web Design during their studies but with a partner who was also studying and family commitments restricting their time, they were in a very different position to many 18-21 year-old students when it came to potentially undertaking a full-time, year-long industry placement.
Through discussion of their background and what they ideally wanted to get from their time studying the degree (essentially, building on their existing knowledge of web and app development and getting a ‘foot in the door’ in this industry), we were able to identify the options and sources of information that might be most useful for them, including how they might discuss their situation with our Placements team and uncover alternative opportunities to gain experience, build their network and work on related projects by engaging with our Enterprise team or volunteering part-time on short term web projects with charities via a local organisation.
Information provision may have been the output of our conversation but it was the context that truly mattered – ensuring C felt heard, seen and understood as an individual, not just a ‘2nd year IT student’ was what helped us establish a personal connection and ensure that the information I was eventually able to provide was relevant, practical and genuinely useful for their situation.
Conclusion
As Career Development Institute Chief Executive, David Morgan, recently wrote in a piece for FE News⁴, Careers and Employability work is about establishing a cohesive, connected ecosystem of support for individuals, not just a ‘one-shot’ interaction that attempts to provide simple solutions or easy answers.
While the increasing capabilities of AI in undertaking various aspects of our day-to-day work⁵ and the growing presence of AI tools within the Careers and Employability space⁶ are undoubtedly developments of which Careers and Employability professionals need to be cognisant, it is also crucial that we recognise and emphasise the value that we offer when it comes to understanding our clients’ contexts and what ‘personalised’ support might mean to them.
Knowledge is power, they say, but working with the whole person, not just their presenting issues, is a vital aspect of Careers and Employability work and something where, as professionals, our humanity, empathy and personal connection can make all the difference.