Improvisational Career Guidance – Book Launch and Author Q&A

Description

In an increasingly complex and unpredictable world, career guidance rarely follows a straightforward path. In Improvisational Career Guidance, Ida Holth Mathiesen challenges traditional views of professional practice and explores how practitioners navigate uncertainty, competing demands and changing contexts through judgement, responsiveness and relationships.

Drawing on sociology, policy implementation research, street-level bureaucracy and theories of improvisation, the book provides an innovative framework for understanding how career guidance is enacted in everyday practice. Attendees will be introduced to key concepts including contextual, political and relational balance, as well as the ideas of Improvisational Career Guidance and Mission Musicality, which offer new ways of thinking about professional discretion and the purpose of guidance.

This launch event will explore how careers professionals can remain responsive to individual needs while navigating organisational expectations and wider social challenges. It is a valuable opportunity for anyone interested in the future of career guidance, professional practice and democratic participation.

Key learning outcomes:

1. Understand the concept of Improvisational Career Guidance and its implications for contemporary professional practice.
2. Explore how practitioners balance policy, organisational demands and the needs of guidance seekers through professional judgement and discretion.
3. Identify new approaches for supporting meaningful participation, responsiveness and ethical decision-making in career guidance settings.

Audience:

Careers consultants, employability practitioners, academics, researchers, PhD researchers, undergraduate and postgraduate students, university librarians, higher education and further education staff, school and college leaders, coaches and mentors, HR professionals, organisational development specialists, policymakers, and anyone interested in career theory, social justice, wellbeing and the future of work.

Author Bio:

Dr Ida Holth Mathiesen is Associate Professor at the University of Stavanger, Norway. She is a sociologist whose research focuses on career guidance in schools, professional practice, collaboration, policy implementation, and the relationship between policy, organisations, and everyday professional work.