Using the Intelligent Careers Card Sort® With University Students

The authors describe the experiences of university students who completed the Intelligent Careers Card Sort(R) (ICCS), a career exploration exercise that is based on the Intelligent Career framework. The Intelligent Career suggests that there are 3 ways of knowing, which individuals should consider to successfully navigate the workplace: knowing-why, knowing-how, and knowing-whom. This model is discussed in the context of the subjective career and the changing economy, and research on card sorts is briefly reviewed. In general, students thought that the ICCS was a useful part of the career development groups in which it was administered. Counselors work in an ever-changing environment that is marked by economic, social, and cultural shifts. To help clients in their search for personally meaningful careers, it is essential for counselors and theorists to develop and test new models that are responsive to these changes (Peavy, 1997; Savickas, 2000, 2001b). In this article, we define career-as "the evolving sequence of a person's work experiences over time" (Arthur, Hall, & Lawrence, 1989, p. 8); this definition takes into account movement and change within both individuals and their environments. By focusing on individual experience, this definition highlights the importance of the subjective view. This is especially relevant in today's service-based, postindustrial economy, which requires individuals to take greater personal responsibility for their career development (Hall, 1996). The subjective view of career differs from person to person (Betz & Fitzgerald, 1987) because it includes an individual's feelings about his or her career accomplishments and expectations for future achievement (Gattiker & Larwood, 1986). Career success refers to the attainment of goals that are personally meaningful to the individual rather than the attainment of goals that are set by others (Mirvis & Hall, 1994). The objective career, conversely, is the observed career progress of an individual through an organization or occupation (Collin & Young, 1986) and relies on a behaviorally based model of the self, a "psychometric self" that will be assessed and given therapy (Peavy, 1997). Career literature that focuses on the objective rather than the subjective career ignores the "perceptions, feelings, and values of the individuals concerned, and the relationship between job and the rest of life" (Collin & Young, 1986, p. 841). These individual experiences are precisely those that counselors must attend to in order to create an atmosphere of "mattering" (Amundson, 1998) in which an effective client-counselor relationship can be formed. To understand a client's subjective view, the individual meaning and personal experience expressed through anecdotes and stories must be investigated (Collin & Young, 1986; Parker, 2002; Savickas, 1991). Counselors' use of facilitating questions and active listening encourages clients to express their narratives, thereby helping individuals enhance their self-knowledge, anticipate choices and transitions, explore possibilities, choose directions that improve fit and develop the self, and learn to appreciate their unique value (Amundson, 1998; Parker, 2002). The Intelligent Career Framework Arthur, Claman, and DeFillippi (1995) have developed a theory of career termed the Intelligent Career, which builds on Quinn's (1992) work on the Intelligent Enterprise. This approach comes out of a broader exploration of the boundaryless career model (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996), which is based on the recognition that contemporary careers are not restricted to one employer or even to one occupation. Boundaryless organizations are those that emerged in response to the globalization of the economy and the movement to information-driven, service-based business (Arthur, 1994; Mirvis & Hall, 1994). A boundaryless career, by extension, is marked by a variety of tasks that may or may not be easily transferred into a job title, entails a periodic redefinition of profession, and often includes several career and job changes over the course of a lifetime (Arthur, 1994). …