Understanding Careers

This is a wonderful resource on careers for students, practitioners, and academics - a rich mix of current research, cases, practical examples, and creative lenses (metaphors) for seeing careers in a new way. It is equally accessible and stimulating for all levels of reader and it's all presented in lively, clear, and compelling writing - an extremely reader-friendly book! -- Douglas T. (Tim) Hall In this timely update of an iconic book, the authors deepen our understanding of career by inspecting its meaning from multiple perspectives on work lives. The innovations and elaborations in this second edition maintain Understanding Careers' reputation as a fundamental text in vocational and organizational psychology as well as keystone volume in career counseling. -- Mark L. Savickas A really valuable contribution....very effective in integrating the different branches of career studies. Very clear, and well argued. Right on the mark! -- Gareth Morgan Understanding Careers is the essential career studies textbook for general college and university-level courses. As with the first edition, the writing is crystal clear with a highly impressive range of scholarship skilfully marshalled from a number of disciplines relevant to career studies. I have used this excellent book for several years in my teaching and find it helps students easily make sense of the career studies field by linking images with contemporary case studies and exercises. This is a superb introductory text for career development professionals and their clients. This wonderful book has revolutionised the design and content of career management programmes in schools, colleges, university and the workplace. -- Phil McCash In a series of fourteen highly readable chapters, Kerr Inkson and his colleagues present a metaphorical approach to careers. The result is a series of insightful and contrasting views, each informative in its own right, and together a call for further conversation. Readers will be both entertained and enlightened by this book. -- Michael B Arthur A wonderfully original, rich, thoughtful, intelligent and helpful exploration of the complexities of making one's way through life, with excellent practical advice on how to go about doing so. The authors recognize the complexity of career, but use Inkson's framework of career metaphors to provide ways of making sense of it without trivializing as so many books about career do. Anyone using this book to teach or to learn about careers will find it immensely useful, rewarding, and enjoyable. -- Hugh Gunz A masterful blend of carer theory and practice, Understanding Careers offers a wonderfully comprehensive and magnificently engaging look at work and careers in contemporary times. Kerr Inkson, Nicky Dries, and John Arnold offer in this book both the best careers scholarship for the serious career studies educator and researcher as well as the most useful career intervention strategies for career practitioners, students, and anyone interested in fostering their own career development. Packed with theory, history, case studies, and practical material, this book is a must read that will serve as an invaluable resource for years to come. -- Paul Hartung Making an excellent book even better is difficult - but the new edition of 'Understanding Careers' has done exactly that. The authors keep the highly praised core of the first edition - powerful metaphors underlying careers - and add new perspectives on context and careers in practice, leading to a must-read not only for students and researchers of careers, but also for career practitioners. Absolutely recommendable! -- Wolfgang Mayrhofer A first class text combining the strengths of the earlier version with new ideas from contemporary research and practice. The new chapters on career self-management and organizational management systems are perfect additions making the book an invaluable resource for scholars, practitioners and students alike. Kudos to the authors for this excellent piece of work, and lucky us being able to benefit from their collaboration! The teaching aids offer are an excellent 'toolkit' for educators seeking to prepare students for their future careers: innovative, engaging and thought provoking. -- Julia Richardson