Quality career education is about more than ticking a box

Making a decision is not just a matter of having all the relevant information to hand. With local elections looming, I suspect many of us have little or no idea about the candidates, what they claim to stand for, their affiliations or their business activities. Yet most of us will dutifully obey the law, rock up and vote.

Often we will pay a premium for someone else to make the decision for us, or at least narrow down our options to a few “safe” choices. Anyone who follows a particular clothes designer, musician or artist, is at least in part abdicating responsibility for their choices to some anointed arbiter of fashion or taste.

If we waited for all the relevant information before swiping right or left on a dating app, we would remain prevaricatingly single. Marketers know that information per se may have little influence, but it is how it is packaged that sways our decisions. In particular information that plays on our emotions is most likely to bias our decisions. In other words we buy the product.

Emotional biases in decision-making frequently pander to our perceptions of our identity. If we see ourselves as rugged outdoors bush-interfering folk, we are probably less likely to consider buying a soft-top VW Beetle. However, if we think we are freedom loving salty-haired surfing types, the VW Kombi is de-rigeur. If we believe we are deserving and advertisements tell us we are, we will spend more on ourselves. If we believe we are committed to fitness we will buy activewear, even if the only activity is the 10-metre fridge gift.

Self-belief, self-confidence, a capacity to take risks, or an acceptance we might fail, all of these qualities may influence more or less everything including our likelihood to choose a novel dish at the restaurant or, shock horror, try a brand-new eatery.

Making career decisions is, in a sense, no different from deciding to go off-piste or not. By that, I mean, there is far more to making a career decision than simply acquiring and processing information. Into that soupy mix go all those other factors such as self-image, confidence, risk taking, appetite for failure, a sense of entitlement, an eye on what our friends and competitors are doing, our reliance on arbiters of what are deemed fashionable or good moves and so on.

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Yet, time and again, the “solution” to (presumed) sub-optimal decision-making is to provide decision-makers with “information”. Information may well be useful or even necessary, but it is far from sufficient. I suspect it is such a popular response because, especially now in this information age, it has probably never been cheaper to provide information to all who seek it. Slap-up a website, and fund it for a few years to keep it up to date, and Bob’s yer uncle.

What is so often missing, are the resources to provide proper career education and counselling. Well done, it helps an individual better understand themselves, their barriers, their self-limitations, how they tend to make decisions, how they get unstuck, how to be braver, the difference between risk and recklessness, and boosting a person to have the courage to have a go, and how to learn from failures and see them as evidence of endeavour and not disgrace. Among many other things.

Proper career education helps primary-aged students create ambitions and excitement. It helps adolescents with transitions and lifelong decision-making skills. It supports adults of all ages and stages maximise their talents to benefit society. It assists people getting back on their feet after set-backs, and it smooths pathways for those looking to taper off their working lives. This is critically important, and it requires proper attention and funding. The key is that good career-decision making requires far more than information.

Jim Bright, FAPS is Professor of Career Education and Development at ACU and owns Bright and Associates, a Career Management Consultancy. Email to [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @DrJimBright