Inheritance in career refers to dimensions such as: social (social structure), genetic
(inherited IQ), and psychological (parents’ attitude towards work and career). Although
some counsellors prefer to stress the active self-determined part of career-making (seen as
“construction”), the inheritance component cannot be ignored, since it is in tune with a
series of theories on career development (Gottfredson, 2002). A client becoming aware of
the “inherited” component, of the extent this influence manifests itself, opens for
him/herself the possibility to decide whether to relate to this component as to a major
anchor or choose to build an autonomous career, different from that of his or her parents.
The construction metaphor
This metaphor is in agreement with career theories that stress the active part played in
determining one’s own socio-professional evolution. The metaphor evinces the
importance of career planning, conceptualised as rational process requiring gathering
information, setting goals, making logical decisions, etc. In explaining a metaphor, clients
will frequently make recourse to the management of their own career through proactive
behaviour. On the other hand, the metaphor may relate to intuition, decisions based on
emotional elements, etc. The counsellor’s role in case the client uses a construction
metaphor is to facilitate the “putting together” of the client’s career.
The cycle metaphor
The main career development theories include “ages” and “stages”. In Levinson (1977)
and Super (1990) careers are described in terms of sequences, stages corresponding to
certain ages: “exploration ”, “stabilization ”, “middle-age transitions”, “maintenance”,
“decline”, etc. Levinson describes career development as a succession of seasons (“The
seasons of a person’s life”, Levinson, 1977). The metaphor can become implicit in a
person’s thinking related to his/her role in society or profession. It can generate
stereotypes regarding career development and professional role (Townsend, 1993). For
example, elderly people living in dynamic environments that value change and
development but conform to the ageing stereotype (according to which age means a
decline in flexibility and adaptation to new or complex tasks) compromise their career
development and settle for a low self-effectiveness in changing aspects of their careers.
In counselling one can choose changing the perspective on professional cycles in the
sense of making them more flexible. A certain chronological age is not necessarily
associated with a certain development stage (55 or 60 does not necessarily imply
retirement).
The match metaphor
One of the most spread topics of vocational psychology is “the person-environment
match” (Parsons, 1909; Holland, 1997). Since it is a strong tendency in the literature, the
metaphor is important in career counselling because it is implicit in the personal career