Marcr Career Blog

CCUP

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Career Counseling with Underserved Populations Model (CCUP)

I finally got hold of the book which includes Pope’s Model and I wrote up my summary, interpretation and critique of the theory on here. However, it’s turned out to be a bit different to what you are used to on here. To start with, it hasn’t got the graphic to explain the model. I found it very difficult to put this into a visual format. I feel it’s less a model than a series of prompts for your practice, for discussion, for your CPD etc. 

The topic of Pope’s model is very topical at the moment with discussions about immigration levels, gender, discrimination as well as right wing parties that are further to the right than we have been used to holding power or at least influencing policy also far more than they used to. So, please be kind when working on this with other people! 🙂

I have done my best to represent the theory and I have also included a critique as I went along. 

I think this is excellent to work on by yourself, with your line manager (if you have one) in supervision, with your assessor if you are in the middle of completing a qualification, or as an activity within your team (if you have one), as there is a lot to unpack, discuss and explore with this one. 

I don’t feel it’s a model, as I mentioned, in the sense that Pope is not offering a clear cut tool to use with clients. But in my view it’s essential ready and important to work through and reflect on… Enjoy! 

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Reflection on Burnout

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Reflection on burnout

What brought me to writing this?

Quite a while ago now I watched a documentary on TV about burnout (in Swiss German and subject to geo-blocking), which has stuck in my mind ever since. It’s not my intention to describe burnout in detail, I’m not a health professional, but to reflect on the implications for us as career professionals.

Dr. Niklas Baer, who manages WorkMed, a support centre for psychological support in the workplace, explains in the documentary that burnout, while very real, is a trivialising expression of what is really going on, the psychological problems the individual is struggling with. These can consist of fear and anxiety, stress, extreme sense of duty, perfectionism, overworking linked to a permanency of these feelings and conditions, etc… The potential list is long. This are the inner ingredients for burnout. When this is combined with pressures from outside, then ‘burnout’ can follow.

What made me think more about this…

The documentary goes on to explain that burnout is not just one experience, it can vary a lot between individuals in what the underlying conditions are that can lead on to burnout, the situation in which it presents itself and the way in which people deal with burnout and its aftermath. The documentary presented three case studies of people who suffered burnout.

The effect of burnout can be long because of the extreme sense of duty some people feel for instance. They go to back to work too soon, often with the help of medication, but the underlying situation is not fully resolved. This can then in turn lead on to (further) illness and job loss. Burnout is only the symptom of the underlying issues and employers have a role to play. From that, we as career professionals can benefit from knowing more about what burnout is and the multi-faceted effect it has on the client.

One participant described it as follows: “I’m on fire for the work I do, but when the fire gets too strong it burns me out”. The key is to use that fire for your work and the energy it creates in an efficient and productive way; to find a balance.

In the documentary, it’s made clear that burnout specifically happens when the build-up to it is constant, and the individual doesn’t have the opportunity to recover or they don’t have the resources to handle the situation through no fault of their own. The underlying conditions then often resolve themselves in one dramatic event: a breakdown or eruption. This can take the shape of existential fear and anxiety, anger and stress, and generally an inability to continue working or coping. It’s a breakdown in the individual’s mental context in combination with external pressures; a mixture of their way of being or values, of having to keep going, taking too much upon oneself out of anxiety, a pressing sense of duty, of being extremely hardworking, which can stem from them liking their work ‘too much’ and being extremely invested, and then becoming completely overwhelmed. In other words, the mechanics of ‘burnout’ could be boiled down to feeling tremendous internal pressure and not having the resources to cope during a time of increasing external pressures or an external ‘trigger’ event. This can result in depression, insomnia and other longer-term effects, or what we call by the shorthand term: burnout.

Responses to burnout

How the employer responds is crucial, both as a preventative measure, but also as a restorative response for the individual. This is a key point in Baer’s argument. Employers often don’t respond ‘when things are not right with someone’, or they respond too late. The three case studies in the documentary show that negative situations prior to burnout, such as unfounded accusations, overwhelming (for the individual) expectations, a mismatch between employee and employer, can be examples of direct causes that can a trigger event for a longer term build-up of tension to lead to this sudden breakdown or burnout.

As a consequence of burnout, the three people followed in the documentary experienced insomnia (two mention they slept only one or two hours a night), crying, depression, feelings of isolation and helplessness etc… Subsequent consequences in their place of work, if they are capable of going to work in the first place, resulted in either job loss or them having to leave their job off their own accord.

Niklas Baer goes on to say that the root to burnout is often found in the person’s childhood and that it’s important for employers (and us?) to notice the signs early. This happens long before the signs are very obvious, such as increased absenteeism or the person not appearing to cope, but can often be found in inconsistencies in interpersonal behaviour, which should be taken seriously. Obviously, my remark would be that it’s also important not to ‘over-interpret’ but to be vigilant as we are not medial professionals. We should at all times be aware of the boundaries of what we can and can’t do. In one of the case studies, the longer term build up to burnout and ongoing difficulties maintaining a job, were founded in an undiagnosed bipolar condition and in another in an sense of responsibility that grew out of proportion, with a shocking outcome as a result, followed by a trigger event. The third person had underlying interpersonal and anger issues.

It’s important to look less of what the person has and more about how they cope with what they have, which resources they bring.

There is also a stigma linked to mental health and burnout which has long term effects. The documentary makers claim that one in 5 people has underlying psychological challenges (they claim 1 in 5 mental illness) in the workplace. This is not always apparent, they claim in the documentary, which means that many people function well in the workplace in spite of this. Even though this may be the case, I would argue that maybe some of these people are trying to cope the best they can while really struggling, in a situation where they feel they can’t afford to lose their job. However, as Baer states, it’s how a person handles their underlying condition that makes the difference. He argues that the level of resources the individual takes to the workplace, and the career intervention, is crucial, not how ill a person is.

Baer argues that burnout is not a separate illness. It’s mainly a crisis after being in a difficult situation that gets even more difficult. It’s far more complex than the name suggests. It’s also more than a moment in time, i.e.: the moment the burnout event occurs. It has a build up long before the event and has consequences long after the event as well. In the programme they claim that on average, it takes 6 months for someone suffering from burnout to re-enter the world of work. There is also no quick solution.

This is an adaptation from Baer’s work. According bot Baer, employers needlessly worry or reject people who are perfectly able to cope in the workplace, in spite of sometimes serious mental illness. The people to ‘worry about’ in the workplace are those who fall in the yellow box at the bottom:

What tools can we use to help clients (within our limits)?

Apart from the fact that the professionals I watched in the documentary have a very different idea of how to set up a room (maybe due to Covid?) and the client being entitled to 35 (!!) appointments, the first of which is comparable to the NCS in England, the latter unfortunately not so much, there are some tools we can use.

  • One technique mentioned was to regulate anxiety. The therapist used ‘finger breathing’, which was different from five finger breathing. This technique showed the client bringing their finger tops of both hands together almost in an open praying position or like Angela Merkel (maybe she was quietly using this technique when she had to talk to ‘more interesting’ politicians our world seems to have an abundance of at the moment!) and then moving both hands in and out in a breathing motion. I think this will also regulate your actual breathing, but it can be discreet and the purpose of the hands is that it distracts the client and offers focus, like any breathing technique.
  • Another suggestion I found interesting was, and it all comes down to regulating anxiety, by finding out what the client’s ‘entry route’ was, linked to the five senses. Whatever their preferred ‘entry route’ they could then use a smell, a sound/song, a taste, a sensation, etc… either imagined or real, to take themselves away from the anxiety they are feeling.
  • Contact with nature was also mentioned as a technique that links in with the above.
  • Exploring underlying assumptions and values would be very powerful as well, but that is where I would feel I would need to bring enough awareness to the session, so I don’t drift beyond my abilities and drift into counselling or psychotherapy.
  • A given is to explore the client’s coping strategies linked to their work and I can see a narrative approach working well here.

Some of these techniques are well known, or adaptations of well-known techniques, but I find it useful to be explicit about them and linking them to this issue.

 

What I took away from this and why it ‘stuck’ for so long.

While this is all very interesting and partly relevant for us in career guidance, I started thinking more widely than that and how we can sometimes, without even realising, make assumptions about how someone may be coping, what they may or may not be capable of, etc…

This is not necessarily our fault. It stems from our own context we bring to any intervention and what we know about any given condition. It’s also part of the process of ‘finding out’, learning about the client and ‘being with’ the client. We go with whatever information or assumptions we have at the start of getting to know the client and then we interact with the client to get a more detailed picture about their specific situation, feelings, implications etc… to be able to support them in the best way possible. This is why I reflected on all of the documentary because it gives me more context and helps me avoid assumptions that are too broad, or in the worst case completely wrong.

In addition to that, I feel that what Baer is talking about, his suggestion of how we can perceive burnout, can also be applied to lots of other situations, conditions and client contexts: whatever a client takes into a career choice or job (personality traits, neurodiversity, mental illness, disabilities, etc…) matters less than the resources they bring with them to cope in any given career context. If a person is able to do a job well, and they have the resources to manage what they bring into the workplace, this should not stop an employer from recruiting them.

I also ‘re-realised’ that Internal challenges, thought patterns or behaviour patterns that are not always helpful internally for the individual, or that not always fit in with the job, bring a context from which we grow. For me, it provides me with that dialectic process of encounter and challenge which brings something new to both my work and my personality from which I become somewhat a changed or new person. It’s a process of renewal and of learning, but also of creating and developing new resources, as long as I approach it with awareness and as long as the challenge in addition to the internal personality traits I bring to the situation are not such that they lead to burnout.

References

  • Die Burnout-Gesellschaft.(2022). Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen – SRF. 27 January
  • Baer, N. n.d., “Psychiatrische Probleme am Arbeitsplatz.” https://slideplayer.org/slide/14352596/, [accessed 13 March 2022], Slide 12 and 13.

Further programmes:

CV writing as a career guidance tool?

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CV writing as a career guidance tool?

Some organisations and professionals, for a variety of reasons, have decided not to write CVs with clients, referring them to the job centre instead if they are adults or if they are a young person, to another person in school or college or the community. I would argue that this is a missed opportunity. CV writing lends itself excellently to being used as an exploration and career guidance tool. The end result of a written CV could be so much more than the sum of it’s parts! I would also argue that writing a good CV requires relevant awareness, technical knowledge and skills.

When assisting a client in writing their CV, you are writing more than just a CV. Especially when your client is a school student, you are exploring their skills, personality and experience with them.

The case for professional CV writing

Templates & CV writing tools

For some people, writing a CV is akin to filling a form. The worst case I have come across was a client who paid someone £50 for someone they met in a pub to write a CV for them (!!). Even though that could work out well if the CV writer who is visiting the pub knows what they’re doing, but in this case, however well-meaning the pub visitor may have been, the resulting CV was only fit for lighting a fire.

Even though I can see a use for templates and interactive online CV writing tools, in my view, they rarely offer a CV that’s ready to be shared with a prospective employer without extensive additional work and care. Paradoxically, CV templates run the risk of tending towards quasi uniformity in content, especially when an entire year group for instance, uses the same template. The CV has the opposite function, to make the client stand out (in a good way!).

I have also come across many a template on which the formatting is so complicated and difficult to adapt, that the client may end up ‘messing up’ the layout and how the CV looks.

Online tools on the other hand, at best help the client think about what ‘should’ go on a CV. At worst it generates a CV that’s formatted in a way that is not fit for purpose and that will stop an employer from saying ‘yes’. Some examples I’ve come across offer a ‘finished CV’ with gaps in the layout or filling only a page and ‘a bit’, instead of filling the page nicely. Section get split over two pages, making them difficult to make sense of quickly etc… One example I’ve come across was a tool that offered a CV with headers with nothing underneath, where the client didn’t have anything to contribute. Without support, an inexperienced client will not have much of a chance if they share such as CV with an employer.

Those tools have their use but the end results needs heavy tweaking in most cases to make the CV perform its key function – getting a job interview.

 

The CV in the 21st century

In addition to this, it’s a good idea to be careful with ‘fancy formatting’ on a CV. Increasingly, larger employers especially can use AI (artificial intelligence) tools to pick out strong CVs and it’s difficult to gauge how good they will pick up on information in a CV with tables, headers on a coloured background, added lines, etc… I would argue in favour of simplicity in layout, especially when applying to larger organisations. A well known exception are of course those CVs aimed at vacancies in graphic design etc… where the client can use the CV to show off their skills and where creativity is almost expected. Even there it pays to be careful.

A CV is more than just a CV

All this means that a CV is a much more technical document, which requires knowledge, insight, careful consideration and thought. Equally, when assisting a client in writing their first CV, you are writing more than just a CV. Especially when your client is a school student, you are exploring their skills, personality and experience with them. You are creating a foundation for their longer term awareness of these skills, personality traits and considered experience, as well as their short term and longer term self-esteem related to the world of work and their abilities, as well as their place within this.

 

CV writing as a guidance tool

This brings us back to using the CV as a guidance tool and missing an opportunity by referring the client to someone else who potentially will write a CV for them, rather than with them.  Using CV writing as a guidance tool can take different forms. Usually, we can combine more than one of these to maximise the CV intervention for the client. I have even used ‘CV writing’ with clients who don’t immediately need one, but may need one in the near future, because it’s such a useful activity. It offers a framework the client can relate to, as well as a written summary of what they have to offer.

Two examples

I have used CV writing:

With clients who are very negative about their abilities, aptitudes and chances of being successful in either their decision making on what to do next or in the workplace. I have used the activity of writing a CV:

  • As an exploration of how they think about themselves, how their teachers, family and friends think about them, linked to writing a personality profile.
  • In the same way I have used their perception of their skills, those they have and those they want to develop, to write a skills section on the CV and to explore and determine ‘where they are’ and ‘where they want to go’. For both of these, using cards, such as the Career Navigator cards offered by Liane Hambly, can be a good way to discuss skills and personality traits. They offer a low threshold for the client. With these, I’m always careful the client is not too quick in picking examples and discuss why they pick them, etc…
  • Sometimes, clients who struggle getting a good overview of where they are feel they don’t have experience to offer. We then work on any activities they have done, including those they don’t see as ‘work experience’. I start by calling that section ‘experience’ in the first place, dropping the word ‘work’. This enables the client to have increased freedom in what they consider. We then explore which skills, personality traits, knowledge etc… they have, adding that to the relevant sections. Most of the time, the result across the CV is a huge confident boost to them.

Clients I work with are mainly in education. Some have a good idea of what they are aiming for. They sometimes have their eye on a very specific job and don’t look at other opportunities and ideas.

  • Before we do anything else, we explore the job verbally, which allows me to gauge how their understanding works. Here too, career navigator cards are useful in allowing them to explore and pick out those relevant to the career or job they are aiming for, which often is a real confidence booster.
  • We then often have a look at the job vacancy, or job vacancies relevant to them, to identify gaps in their understanding and to confirm what they have to offer already. This helps the client test their understanding of their job or career idea and what they have found out so far with reality. It also helps them explore other career paths when we come across other vacancies.
  • In the meantime we document the qualities they have on the CV and discuss ways in which they can build up those qualities they don’t yet have. This helps the client maximise their chances, but also helps them in their reflection on whether the career they are aiming for is really what they want to do and whether they are on track. Again, it helps them consider related options too, which they can then decline or explore further. Sometimes the client realises they need to rethink their plans at a more fundamental level.

… very important tools are our skills and professionalism, in addition to our own research in what a CV is and its function, how they are used by employers, current recruitment tools and practices, etc…

Summary of how CV writing can be used as a guidance tool

These are just two examples of how a CV can be used as:

  • An opportunity for reflection by the client – of where they are, where they want to go next and what they have to offer in relation to this.
  • As an exploratory tool – both for the way they see themselves and for the way they perceive the world of work.
  • As a confidence building tool – they usually have far more to offer than they realise.
  • A way to build hope in the client, to help them motivate themselves to more forward.
  • An opportunity to practise adaptability in the 21st century world of work through role modelling by the guidance professional, through offering examples of how this could work and for the client to build resilience and confidence in being able to adapt to change.
  • An opportunity to practise adapting their CV to different vacancies.
  • Preparation for a job interview by helping them realise the many qualities and experiences they have to offer.
  • Preparation for filling in application forms, if that is how the employer requires them to apply. The CV is usually a very good summary document for the information needed on an application form. In this sense, talking through what the client has to offer and their experiences, as part of the CV writing process, helps them formulate anything they could write in any open questions on the application.
  • A decision making tool – “am I on the right path?”, “are there any obstacles I need to overcome?”
  • …

Of course, how important each one of these is, depends very much on the individual client.

How does this way of looking at CV writing fit in with career theory?

Key ways I can think of are:

  • Trait and factor: it helps the client estimate and gauge how well they fit in with the requirements of any options they have in mind for their next step and it offers an opportunity to talk about the ever changing world of work and career management skills.
  • Chaos theory and Planned Happenstance theory: it offers us the opportunity to talk about ongoing career management and the skills needed to successfully navigate the world of work. It also allows us to practise and role model ‘career change’ and ‘career management skills’ with the client.
  • Hope-Action theory: it gives us a clear opportunity to build hope in the client. If done well, it also increases motivation as the client walks away with a more accurate view of all the things they have to offer, with an increased opportunity for the client to follow this up with determined action.
  • Boundaryless Career theory and Protean Career theory: it gives us an opportunity to discuss ‘self-responsibility’ of the client within any job situation and the flexibility within career opportunities. It can give the client more ownership of their development and success. It potentially puts them more at the centre of their planning, instead of it being a form filling exercise for ‘something that is available’.
  • Career Anchors: it can also helps them assess what their key values are, what is important to them in the workplace. And it is an opportunity to discuss their level of attainment versus the job opportunity or career opportunities they are looking at (Career Engagement Model). An example I come across quite often are those clients who would like to train to be a chef, but don’t realise the realities of actually working as a chef in a busy kitchen. Writing their CV offers the opportunity to discuss how they handle a busy, often stressful work place with unsociable working hours in a sensitive way.
  • Psychology of Working theory and also Structuralism: writing a CV with the client allows us to explore their context and what their needs are within this. It also allows us to explore where their idea has come from and what influences their choice. Helping the client make discoveries about this, may help them confirm their choice or challenge this, prompting them to assess their skills and qualities in view of an expanded view of what is possible for them.

These are just some of the examples of how this can fit in with different theoretical frameworks of course. Equally, not all of these will be practised with every client of course. The client’s needs and situation will be key in which of these we can approach to help the client.

Tools that can be used:

Some of the tools we can use in relation to this:

  • I think within this, very important tools are our skills and professionalism, in addition to our own research in what a CV is and its function, how they are used by employers, current recruitment tools and practices, etc…
  • I already mentioned career navigator cards, which is an excellent, low threshold interactive way of exploring qualities, skills etc… with the client. From experience, especially younger clients get stuck quite quickly when assessing what they have to offer.
  • Job vacancy websites for exploring, such as https://www.reed.co.uk/ , https://www.totaljobs.com/ , https://uk.indeed.com/ and many others, as well as the apprenticeship website.
  • Company websites and the vacancy pages on them can also be a handy tool for exploring what companies are looking for and what certain career routes require.
  • https://www.careerpilot.org.uk/ and for higher education https://www.prospects.ac.uk/.