Qualitative career assessment: A review and reconsideration

Abstract

Qualitative career assessment philosophically aligns with narrative career counseling which has an enhanced profile in career development practice since the field was alerted to the need for a paradigm shift through the pioneering work of Audrey Collin and Richard Young (Collin & Young, 1986, 1988; Young & Collin, 1992). Subsequently, Mark Savickas (1993) called for career counseling to respond to a rapidly changing postmodern world by placing greater emphasis on stories rather than quantitative scores. This review of articles on qualitative career assessment published in the eight most well-known English language career development journals since Savickas' call revealed that relatively few articles have been published. Of the journal articles reviewed, more than half were conceptual. The major challenges for qualitative career assessment highlighted by this review are the lack of definitional clarity about exactly what it is and a limited evidence base that needs greater academic rigor to strengthen it. Together, these challenges inform a future agenda for qualitative career assessment.