Careering through the web
iCeGS
Tristram Hooley
Head of iCeGS
iCeGS: Creative Solutions for the Careers Sector
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Disclaimer
• Based on a project that I undertook with Tony
Watts and Jo Hutchinson for UKCES.
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• This is not the “presentation of the paper” – but
does draw heavily from it.
• Its strengths are all Tony and Jo’s while its
weaknesses are all mine.
iCeGS: Creative Solutions for the Careers Sector
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What is this based on?
• Literature search
• Extreme browsing
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• Some (online) conversations with practitioners
• Iterative development on my blog
• Thinking
iCeGS: Creative Solutions for the Careers Sector
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Summary
• This presentation will look at the web as a site for
career exploration
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• It will do this by identifying seven key
technological trends and looking at how they
intersect with career
• It will then go on to set out a framework for the
delivery of careers work via technology.
iCeGS: Creative Solutions for the Careers Sector
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iCeGS
iCeGS: Creative Solutions for the Careers Sector
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Roberson & Nardi
Survival Needs and Social Inclusion: Technology
Use Among the Homeless (2010)
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Homeless people are using digital technologies to
•Enable social ties
•Collaborate for survival
•Connect with non-homeless people
iCeGS: Creative Solutions for the Careers Sector
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Social media = Social transformation
In Bowling Alone Putnam (2000) asks will the internet be
more like the television
(alienating, individualised, or more like the telephone
based around consumption) (connecting, social,
producing).
Here Comes Everybody
Shirky (2008) argues that social media is a major
force for social capital development.
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Social media/web 2.0/web 3.0 is changing the way
individuals interact with
•Information
•Each other This is the stuff that careers work
•Institutions concerns itself with
iCeGS: Creative Solutions for the Careers Sector
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Social media vs Search
(Long, 2010).
Access
• 70% of UK households had internet access
• 76% of adults had accessed the internet in the previous
three months (Office for National Statistics, 2009).
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• 93% of young people (16-24) had accessed the internet in
the previous three months,
• 77% of young people accessed the internet every day or
almost every day (Office for National Statistics, 2009).
• use of social networking sites was well distributed across
the age ranges. (49% of members of social networking sites
were over 35, and 24% were over 50) (Ofcom, 2008)
iCeGS: Creative Solutions for the Careers Sector
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Digital access/Digital literacy
• There is still a substantial minority excluded from access to
the internet.
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• However, increasingly this is about digital literacy rather
than digital access.
• Digital literacy might include
– Technical skills
– Ability to build relationships and networks online
– Ability to locate and retrieve information
– Ability to examine the provenance of information and
critique it
iCeGS: Creative Solutions for the Careers Sector
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Question
• If digital literacy is essential to information
discovery and to the building of social capital is it
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a career management skill?
• If so is its development a key aim of careers
professionals (in themselves and their clients?)
iCeGS: Creative Solutions for the Careers Sector
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Key trends
• Community
• Collectivising knowledge
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• Individualisation
• Recognising time and place
• Located in the cloud
• Free or almost free
• Diverse and integrated
• Games
iCeGS: Creative Solutions for the Careers Sector
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Community
Collectivising knowledge
Individualisation
Recognising time and place
Located in the cloud
Free or almost free
“publish and then filter” rather than “filter and then publish”
Diverse and integrated
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iCeGS: Creative Solutions for the Careers Sector
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Games
So what are we
going to do with
all that?
Key issues
• Information is everywhere (and advice and
guidance aren’t far behind)
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• We are not going to be resourced to see more
and more people one to one
• The web offers individuals major opportunities to
learn and engage in career exploration
iCeGS: Creative Solutions for the Careers Sector
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Ways of working
Technology can be a way
• to deliver information;
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• to provide an automated interaction; or
• to provide a channel for communication.
– one to one
– one to many
– many to many
iCeGS: Creative Solutions for the Careers Sector
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The digital careers worker needs to
• Be willing to develop technical skills for their own
professional development and the needs of their clients
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• Focus on developing career management skills (including
digital literacy)
• Search for new delivery paradigms rather than attempting to
transfer old ones online
• Be willing to play a range of roles (teacher, broker, promoter
and author of content as well as that of counsellor)
iCeGS: Creative Solutions for the Careers Sector
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