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This paper aims to empirically examine career guidance services in terms of e-service quality, information quality and perceived value. It specifically examines students’ perceptions of quality to explore the effects of e-service quality and information quality on perceived value.

Students from the University of Verona participated in a quantitative survey, and 119 questionnaires were collected to assess the perceptions of respondents on e-service quality, information quality and perceived value about the career guidance e-service.

The results indicate that students perceive high value for the career guidance services; the perceived value depends on both service quality of the e-platform and information quality of the report; and efficiency is the most important dimension of e-service quality, while adequacy appears to be the most important dimension of the report.

These findings reveal that service organisations such as universities should invest in career guidance services, given that such services are appreciated by students and contribute to reducing the gap between education and job opportunities. In the design phase, service organisations should pay attention to students’ career development needs by developing e-platforms that are easy to use, appealing, efficient and with continuous system availability and reports that include relevant, understandable, reliable and adequate information. It is important to provide students with a report after they have completed a questionnaire.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research empirically evaluating the effects of perceived e-service quality and information quality on perceived value with specific reference to career guidance e-services.

Dr Bruce Lloyd, Principal Lecturer in Strategy at South Bank University, in discussion with Cathy Bereznicki, (now former) Chief Executive of Institute of Careers Guidance, about the challenges facing both the careers guidance industry in particular and its clients in general. These new challenges include the growing importance of lifetime learning, the impact of globalisation in many areas, more flexible working, changing expectations, increasing attention to the whole area of values and a greater emphasis on personal development. All these factors are likely to radically alter what we mean by a career in the years and decades ahead. This will have a far reaching effect on the nature and form of the support industies, such as those provided by the Institute of Careers Guidance.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the effects of career development and guidance among students (age 17-23) enrolled in higher education in The Netherlands. First the paper explores whether the development of career competencies contribute to career identity, learning motivation, certainty of career choice and drop out, and also whether the learning environment affects these variables. In the study, four career competencies are identified: career reflection (reflective behavior), work exploration (exploring behavior), career action (pro-active behavior) and networking (interactive behavior). Aspects of the learning environment that are taken into account are practice- and inquiry-based curriculum and career guidance conversations.

A questionnaire-based study was carried out among 4,820 students and 371 (school) career counsellors in 11 universities.

The results show that career competencies are related to learning motivation, career identity, certainty of career choice and drop out threat. The learning environment also contributes to these outcome variables. Students who participate in a practice-based and inquiry-based curriculum, and who have helping conversations about their study with their teachers, feel more motivated for learning, are more certain of their career choice and are less likely to quit their study.

A limitation of this study is that, due to the cross-sectional design with no control group, no strong evidence for effectiveness can be presented. Moreover, the lack of well validated instruments limits the value of the results. The explained variance of the outcome variables, however, does indicate that there are relationships between career competencies and career learning environment on one hand, and career identity, learning motivation and certainty of choices on the other.

Constructing and attributing meaning when engaging in these dialogues is of central importance; the development of personality traits and qualities only takes place when those learning find the content meaningful (and that is something quite different than content being considered “necessary”). In order to achieve such a learning environment within the dominant educational culture, transformative leadership is essential. Such leadership, however, is rare in Dutch universities of applied sciences until now.

Universities are increasingly acknowledging that they have a strong responsibility to guide students not only in their academic growth, but also in their career development. Universities – and especially universities of applied sciences – cannot leave this task to the public or private sector for two key reasons. First, universities are funded by the government and are therefore expected to prepare their students adequately for life in our individualized society as well as for the labor market. In the second place because organizations in the private and public sector often lack the knowledge and the motivation to guide young people on their career paths.

A limitation found in the research, as well as in actual career interventions in schools, is that they focus on change in students’ knowledge, attitudes and decision-making skills, while students’ behaviors are not examined. Hughes and Karp (2004) maintain that research should focus on exploring the relationships between guidance interventions and positive students’ behavioral outcomes. Therefore, the paper concentrates – in search of the influence of school-based career interventions – not on decision-making skills, attitudes or knowledge but on actual career behavior, i.e. career competencies of students.

Individuals with disabilities and vulnerabilities often experience a series of interventions that are of little benefit in terms of career development, resulting in uncertainty, career barriers, disinvestment in the future and school, a lack of knowledge regarding current reality, and a tendency to delay important life decisions, which can limit their ability to imagine and plan for the future. Based on the most recent and accredited approaches in the field of career guidance, this chapter explores a number of innovative programs and interventions designed to support children, adolescents, and adults with and without disabilities in planning their educational and professional futures in an inclusive perspective. Emphasis is given to actions and interventions to enable individuals with and without disabilities to develop critical consciousness, awareness, and reflection regarding the contextual variables and conditions that may represent career barriers to their future, to support them in aspiring to an inclusive and sustainable future, and to help them to acquire the strategies and skills needed to pursue what is close to their heart.

Have we not reached a watershed in education that requires a rethink in our attitude to careers work in secondary schools? It is significant that back in 1974 the teachers' professional association concerned enlarged its title to National Association of Careers and Guidance Teachers. In this respect I would argue that Careers and Guidance are not the same, although the former is embraced by the latter. The days of the Careers Teacher are, in my judgement, well past — in too many schools in England and Wales (Scotland has its own system) this title is still given to a teacher largely to meet the headmaster's need for a “careers set‐up” in the school which will satisfy the latter's conscience, the Governing Body, and the majority of articulate parents.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how critical discourse analysis can help to uncover the dominant discursive formations that underlie policy guidelines within education. Focusing on the policy guidelines for career education and guidance in New Zealand, it illustrates how these have been used by the state in an attempt to normalise ideological standpoints, shape “common‐sense” thinking and delimit the scope of practice.

Critical discourse analysis was employed as this approach helps to uncover the hidden meanings, political imperatives and uneven workings of power/dominance and oppression that are employed in/through textual representations.

Neoliberal discourse is infused throughout the policy guidelines for career education and guidance in New Zealand, and demands that career advisers/teachers should produce entrepreneurial and self‐responsibilised global economic subjects.

Although this paper is situated within a New Zealand context, given the creeping influence of neoliberalism in many English‐speaking states, the issues identified have international relevance in relation to the kind of citizen career education is expected to produce.

Much of the literature within the career arena adopts an uncritical, and apolitical, stance, with the truth‐claims made by neoliberal states tending to be positioned as authoritative and inviolable. Drawing from critical theory, this paper contributes a social justice perspective that looks beneath the surface of the seemingly benign and well‐intentioned discourses that permeate the guidelines for career education and guidance in New Zealand.

The purpose of this paper is to draw on the employment situation of postdoctoral researchers (postdocs) in the Netherlands, concerning their career prospects and embeddedness within their organisation, in order to discuss theoretical perspectives on academic careers.

This multi-method study consists of three parts: a survey, in-depth interviews, and three focus group meetings with postdocs as well as representatives of the human resource staff and the Dutch Research Council (NWO). This paper reports on the findings from the focus group meetings, which concentrated on how postdoctoral researchers consider their employment situation and career prospects.

The three focus group discussions revealed that postdocs are caught within a dual controversy, the first involves their lack of clarity concerning their career prospects and developments despite their highly valued work, the second regards the fact that they are specialized staff, contributing to the primary process of their employing organisation but faintly connected. Although the postdocs’ formal position seems weak, their situation in terms of academic socialising is much stronger and active than appears at first sight, particularly due to their personal agency.

The postdocs require and appreciate guidance and support, particularly when they must leave academia.

The paper provides new and additional insights into the position of postdocs and their career prospects. Their personal agency in pursuing further career steps is more active than expected in previous studies.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the main students’ motivators for their migration decisions, which can be used by education managers working in the area of career management in higher education institutions of Latvia.

Performed empirical data analysis is based on a survey data, collected from students of various educational programmes in two higher education institutions of Latvia. The data analysis consisted of three steps: initial exploratory data analysis (including testing for sample homogeneity, and sample descriptive statistics), correspondence analysis of student’s answers (including testing for survey reliability, discrimination measures and dimension reduction) and analysis of relationships between survey questions (including contingency tables, testing for directional associations and the logistic regression).

The results of the study show that students’ career motivators are significant explanatory factors for their migration decisions. According to the survey results, the main reasons for migration decisions are better career prospects, a higher salary, new professional experience and share of own experience, new professional contacts, motivating and interesting job, better training facilities and the support of their family members and friends who are working or studying abroad.

First, the sample in this study included two higher education institutions. Second, the same respondents participated in both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the research. Future study with a more diverse student population and the refined scale items is recommended to verify and generalise the findings.

The paper addresses policy makers at the national level and education managers responsible for career guidance activities. The conducted analysis has allowed the authors to provide some recommendations for education managers working in the area of career guidance and counselling in Latvia. However, as education managers in the Baltic states face similar challenges, the results might be also used by managers working in other Baltic states.

The empirical study performed in the paper has attempted to investigate the influence of students’ career drivers on their migration decisions in the framework of career management in higher education institutions.

This study, examines women's career types and their effects on women's satisfaction with their career success and their attributions of the sources of this career success. The study proposes a typology of four career types that are determined by the manifestation of a woman's career pattern and career locus. It finds empirical evidence of three distinct career types for women: achievers, navigators and accommodators. Women having accommodator career types are significantly less satisfied with their career success than women having navigator career types and achiever career types.

The purpose of the study was to discover the key psychological issues involved in voluntary career change in 30‐somethings, with implications for career theory and guidance.

A qualitative methodology was employed. Data gathering was by means of semi‐structured interviews and interpretation used interpretative phenomenological analysis. A sensemaking perspective within a constructivist framework defined the research.

Three types of themes were generated from the participant interviews. The first relates to issues of continuity and discontinuity during the change process, the second deals with participant's values directing the change, and the final theme covers the influence of context on the change process. The implications these themes have for contemporary meanings of career are discussed together with suggestions for guidance.

Findings only reflect views at a point in time. A recommendation for future longitudinal research is made. The effect of the researcher is acknowledged in the sensemaking process.

A number of revisions to traditional career theory are identified and several career guidance implications.

This research is unique in addressing specific issues relating to the 30‐something age‐group and is topical in dealing with the phenomena of autonomous career change among this group. The use of a phenomenological perspective is scarce in the study of career change and provides a highly personal insight that furthers our understanding of the meaning of career. This is of particular value to career theorists and career counsellors.