This is not a particularly controversial point. Economists cannot with great accuracy predict the market, doctors cannot with great accuracy predict the course of a disease or who precisely will succumb to a particular disease. Life is complex, changeable and changing. Beware anyone who tells you otherwise.

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Unfortunately, there remains a tendency to “oversell” tests that generate a shortlist of “recommended” or sometimes even “ideal” occupations based on answers to the test questions. Unless cautiously handled by a skilled counsellor, it is easy for recipients of the results to interpret these recommendations as determinative predictions.

However, the problem is more fundamental. Careers counsellors should not allow themselves to be put in the business of making predictions.

People and the world are unpredictable, non-linear, complex and ever-changing. While it is understandable that people seek certainty, especially if they feel unsure, making dubious predictions is not going to assist in the longer-term.

Rather, the focus should be on coaching clients to develop skills to explore, evaluate and act on opportunities as they arise, and to reflect continually on their own circumstances and motivations.

Ironically rather than trying to close the deal with narrowed-down vocational choices, encouraging open-minded exploration, and the skills to change direction if personal circumstances or external events like labour market forces dictate.

In other words, we need to stop the guessing game, particularly in school settings, and avoid prematurely putting students into categories and encouraging them to limit their searches.

Panichi makes a good point about unnecessarily narrowing the vocational aspirations of “children still finding their place in the world”. I’d extend that to adults as well. He also reminds us not to overlook the importance of doing work that is in demand, and it is a good point. However, it turns out demand continually and sometimes unpredictably changes too.

For these reasons, I have worked with some very talented colleagues at Become Education on a very different approach to career education with both primary-aged and high school students as well as adults, that does not push students (or adults) to make a specific career decision, instead it teaches them how to generate possibilities and test them.

That way, they can develop skills to design their futures rather than be given a label or a “matched” occupation and told that is their best option, a far better experience than the current alternative.

Dr Jim Bright, FAPS, is a director at IWCA and is Director of Evidence & Impact at edtech start up BECOME Education. Email to [email protected]. Follow him on X/Twitter @DrJimBright

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