Boundaryless Careers? A Space Oddity

When I was asked if I would like to write an article on third space professionals in HE, with a focus on careers and employability, I have to admit my immediate reaction was along the lines of ‘are we in the third space? I’ve never really thought of it like that!’

It is quite a new concept to me – though when your Director co-wrote the book on it (The Impact of the Integrated Practitioner: Studies in Third Space Professionalism) it is certainly something that I have become familiar with and has helped pose questions around the work we do within the Careers Service and our ‘space’ institutionally. The theoretical notion of boundaryless careers has been around for a long time (Arthur and Rousseau, 1996) – differentiating from traditional career structures; less progression within single roles/organisations/fields, greater agency. But the work of the Careers Service itself might well be described as ‘boundaryless’.

When it comes to where a Careers Service sits within institutional structure there is no one-size-fits-all – Student Services? Learning and Teaching? Enterprise? Somewhere else? Wherever we sit though, the work we do increasingly transcends boundaries set by institutional alignment.

Then there is employability: that slightly vague, fuzzy concept that pervades education and industry – but where it is difficult to see a shared consensus of what it means, what it includes and who is responsible for it (is it just a Careers Service thing?). Employability is more than about getting a job. It is also more than about the development of a prescribed set of skills. It is multi-dimensional and includes the curation of experiences from all aspects of a person’s life; the personal, professional, and academic. Reflection, self-efficacy and the development of agency and identity are crucial if we are to truly allow students to discover who they are and what they want to achieve. To that end the development of student employability is a whole institution responsibility.

But where does the Careers Service sit within this then? Well, unsurprisingly we have a vested interest in the development of student employability – after all, our main aim is to empower our students to make confident decisions about their future and to support them in getting there. Career management is an integral element of employability itself (Dacre Pool & Sewell, 2007; Tibby and Norton, 2020) – the ability to make confident career decisions is just as important as having the skills and attributes needed for a job. As ex-AGCAS President Bob Gilworth once said, “all employability and no career is like the luggage without the map”. It is also vital that these employability assets are identified and articulated in order to take action toward achieving career goals.

As a service, we can deliver on this through various careers education, information, advice, and guidance (CEIAG) activities. Impartial and confidential 1-1 advice and guidance. Workshops and suites of digital resources. Awards, mentoring and employer-led activities. Careers Services have a wide and varied output across institutions. But what about engagement issues? How can this be delivered at scale? Are we supporting the students who really need support? How do we engage the un-engaged?

With these issues in mind, we have seen an increased drive to embed careers and employability in the curriculum. There is no one size fits all here – from individual workshops to credit bearing modules this has seen the role of the careers professional move from a predominantly extra and co-curricular one, to one which has an increased presence within curricula. HE careers professionals are now often likely to have a teaching qualification (PGCAP) alongside their career qualification, be Fellows of Advance HE, and as concerned with pedagogy and course design as delivering careers guidance. To deliver effective CEIAG at scale across an institute, and ensure as many students as possible receive the careers and employability support they need, requires us to work and deliver across institutional boundaries.

So as the employability agenda increasingly influences higher education strategy and the work we do within contemporary Careers Services continues to widen in scope, we have seen a positive move away from the view of a siloed service often on the periphery to something more central in the student experience. So, what space do we occupy? Within Professional Services but whose impact necessitates activity beyond provision of a central support service. Educators, but not academic staff. Maybe then, it is, the third space!