Jim Bright is Professor of Career Education and Development in the School of Education at Australian Catholic University (ACU). He is also a partner in a career consultancy, Bright and Associates.

Can you tell me a little about your own career development?

I think you can look at this in several different ways. In resume terms, I attended a Catholic high school; went up to Nottingham University in the United Kingdom to read electrical engineering; dropped out after one term. Then, because I was going out with the daughter of the landlord of my local pub, I got the opportunity to run another pub for this family. It was just along the road from Kenilworth Castle, formerly the home of the Earl of Leicester, reputedly Elizabeth I’s lover. Then I returned to Nottingham to study psychology. When I finished that I worked as a consultant in a civil engineering firm on human factors related to transport technology: for instance, those in-car navigation systems that are becoming popular in Australia were developed in an EEC project I worked on in the 1980s! I got bored with this and returned to Nottingham University to do a PhD. My thesis was on how we can learn patterns and rules apparently unconsciously. After that I moved to the University of Hertfordshire to work with Professor Ben C. Fletcher on the transmission of occupational stress. While there, a job came up at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, and after being interviewed by phone while standing in the reception area of an Algarve Pensione at midnight, I got the job as a lecturer in organisational psychology. I was a part-replacement for Beryl Hesketh, who had just been made Professor at Macquarie University, largely on the back of her extensive work in vocational psychology and careerdevelopment. I had to teach her course in vocational psychology to Masters (organisational) psychology students. This was a daunting experience, especially with an already experienced Jo Earl in the class, fully appreciating my manifest limitations! Through having great students such as Jo Earl, I rapidly developed and broadened my careers research, and established the Careers Research and Assessment Service at UNSW. My research became almost exclusively focused upon careers and increasingly as I co-developed the chaos theory of careers I found myself reading more and more outside of scientific psychology. Consequently, I felt I needed to be in an academic environment that drew on a range of different methodologies and literatures, hence my move into education.

Alternatively, it was chance that my elder sister’s boyfriend was a university lecturer in physics when I was a child. He stimulated my interest in scientific enquiry. A Spanish teacher when throwing me out of a classroom when I was 13 said, ‘When you go to university, you will not be able to behave like that,’ and this comment changed my thinking, plans and self-efficacy, and dared me to dream that I could go to university–nobody else had publicly expressed such confidence in my skills! A chance meeting with the landlord’s daughter encouraged me to leave electrical engineering for a world of beer and … stuff. A chance meeting with Nottingham University’s Secretary of the School of Psychology and R.B. Joynson, the admissions tutor, lead to my being admitted to study psychology (sight and records unseen). Arriving at the school with no record of my admittance lead to me being randomly chosen by one Professor Vicki Bruce to be in her tutor group. This led to my first ever peer-reviewed publication in Memory and Cognition. Her husband, Mike Burton, was then to become my PhD supervisor. Once in Australia, by chance I ended up living on the same street as Robert Pryor (who promptly moved!). And people wonder why I am so convinced of the merits of the chaos theory of careers!

What led you into this field?

I had an interest in psychology from childhood. My sister introduced me to H.J. Eysenck’s Know Your Own Personality when I was about 10 years of age. Before that both my mother and my aunt used me as a guinea pig during their career changes into teaching. I recall being interviewed on compact cassettes for various assignments! I then did a residential course on personality and hypnosis at Loughborough University, and eventually did psychology. My main interest then was learning and cognitive psychology, but this changed during my post-doctorate with Ben Fletcher. Then I was thrown into teaching vocational psychology at UNSW. My brother Robert was also instrumental in sparking my interest in resumes and doing more systematic research on them. Another Robert (Pryor) subsequently helped me develop a deep interest in career decision-making.

I know that you are involved in writing, consulting, training and teaching. Would you tell readers a little about these activities? How do you manage it all?

Much of my adult life has been spent caught in the pendulum attractor between consultancy that provides relatively instant results and financial rewards, and academia that provides delayed results and modest financial rewards. In the first part of my career, my consultancy was a distraction from research, but I had a remarkable sea-change about seven or eight years ago when I found that my engagement in consultancy actually inspired me to write more, and also provided me with a rich fund of experience and data for publication. Furthermore, I got asked to do more and more training outside of the university. I found this immensely enjoyable as I was tending to work with jobseekers where I could see I was making a difference and helping, or I was training careers advisors, a mob for whom the term ‘reticent’ does not spring to mind! This was great fun because I was being challenged and most of my training became, and still is, one long spirited argument, where I learn as much as those whom I claim to train. I have really found something where I feel at home and spiritually rewarded. For me, in Czysentmihalyi’s terms, it is work as flow or play.

My weakest suit is writing, but I am lucky to collaborate with one of the best writers I have ever seen in academia–Robert Pryor. I have learned a lot about how to present ideas from Robert and my writing has improved a little, but it is still the thing I find hardest. Indeed when I wrote the book Should I Stay Or Should I Go? I dictated it into a tape recorder hanging off the sun visor in my car during my daily commute!

In terms of coping or fitting it all in, the reality is that I don’t. In terms of development of the chaos theory of careers, we have about 20 papers either planned or in backlog with data waiting to be written up. There are several book projects, a couple of broadcasting projects and a novel all impatiently shouting at me in the early hours of the morning. Luckily the business, Bright and Associates, has a great managing partner in my wife Karen. She is an author in her own right as well as seeing clients and running training. Usually we try to take turns, by one of us starting early and the other doing the school run, and then we swap in the afternoon.

There is nothing more important to me than my seven- and five-year-old boys and Karen, my wife. Like any parent I feel guilty about not spending enough time with them. One way around this is to bring the whole family on tour: it is quite usual to see my kids running around international careers conferences, or infamously vomiting almost over Peter Tatham in Hobart after a visit to the chocolate factory! My challenge for the future is to spend more time with my kids and find some time to start to do exercise, which I am told is a popular past time amongst fidgets and the vain!

Are you involved in any special projects?

A couple of interesting projects relate to developing Aboriginal career mentoring programs in schools, and training careers advisors in the use of the NSW Department of Education and Training’s School to Work online survey based around self-efficacy. Of course, the ongoing development of the chaos theory of careers is also a major activity, together with running career management courses for parents and also careers hypotheticals for local community partnerships. I’ve been doing some work with the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training about science promotion and careers. I facilitated a large meeting of people in the science world in Canberra focusing on the national interest in science and the promotion of science careers for women and men. Our scientific creativity will be one of the cornerstones of our future prosperity.

Have there been any special mentors in your career?

Robert Pryor has been a fantastic mentor and friend. Here is a person with more than 300 publications in the careers field over 30 years. When we first went to the United States together, I was impressed by the array of leading figures that took the trouble to seek him out and congratulate him on his contribution. Other figures who have guided me either explicitly or implicitly include Professor Kevin McConkey, who was Head of School at UNSW when I arrived; Bruce Crowe, the ex-President of the Australian Psychological Society; Judith Leeson, who, amongst other things, reminds me that I am in comparison really quite lazy; Col McCowan; and Mark Savickas.

What current thinking in career development has influenced your work?

In no particular order, I would nominate Norm Amundson’s work on metaphor and active engagement, Mark Savickas’ career construction theory, and Nancy Betz’s work on self-efficacy as critically important. Self-efficacy permits interests to develop. Without self-efficacy, an individual cannot imagine being something else, and hence cannot have a sense of inter (between) est (being).

A lot of the work that is currently influencing my thinking is coming from physics and biology, from authors such as Stephen Strogatz, Harold Morowitz, and Ralph Stacey, as well as an unknown called Carl Jung.

I am interested in the relationship between the emergent and convergent aspects of a person. The emergent ones are those unique aspects that arise through the complex interactions and chance events to create a unique identity, preoccupation and set of stories for the individual. The convergent qualities are those that connect the individual into society and reality, they are shared collectively across people and things. Formal assessment often taps into these sorts of qualities. My view is that knowledge of both is required to make effective decisions in careers–and life. Psychometric assessment in the absence of the client’s story is likely to be of little value, but knowing the story without a way of articulating this into social contribution through social connection, or without even acknowledging that there exists a reality beyond and independent of an individual’s stories and constructions, is also likely to be of little value. If you take a radical social constructivist–who believes that all we know are our constructions of the world and that reality does not exist beyond this–to the third floor of a building and drop them off, they had better rapidly construct a new theory of gravity before they literally deconstruct on the concrete pavement below. This is a reality test for a radical social constructivist. My original example was to drop them from the ninth floor, but on hearing this example Mark Savickas, in his typically compassionate manner, remarked that if I dropped them from the third floor, they might survive the ordeal and learn a valuable lesson! The constructivist approach is extremely valuable and an important component of careers, and perhaps has been neglected in the past, but we should build upon our foundations which probably have emphasised normative, convergent approaches and see the two approaches as complimentary but different.

Can you say something about your role as Professor at ACU?

It is a really exciting opportunity. I hold the title of Professorial Fellow in CareerEducation and Development, where my role is to provide some leadership in the area of career development. This involves teaching into the Postgraduate Certificate of Career Education, as well as researching career development and supervising students. ACU have appointed Robert Pryor as a Professor too, to continue our collaboration and to develop the area. We are hoping to further develop and strengthen the reputation of ACU as a leading centre for career development research and teaching. One of the features of the ACU certificate program is that it is delivered face-to-face by myself and my colleagues (currently in Sydney and Melbourne and probably rurally and in other states soon). This is a really attractive and distinctive feature because it provides students with a dynamic and interactive opportunity to get involved in debate and discussion. Call me a traditionalist, but I believe strongly that postgraduate education is about mixing face-to-face with and learning from people who are actively involved in research and practice. The feedback is that students greatly appreciate this approach. Also, many students feed into the program having done a course I offer privately around the country that essentially serves a similar role to the Australian Career Development Studies online unit as an introduction to career development, but it is done face-to-face which many students prefer.

I am really impressed with ACU as a human university–people matter, students matter and both are well supported. I also like the national element that allows us to go out to the students around the country; for instance, there is flexibility to run courses in local centres. My position at ACU also explicitly recognises the contribution that my work through Bright and Associates can make to my research and teaching, and so it is nice to be able to have the best of both worlds.

What do you consider some of the important issues affecting the careers field today in Australia?

I think the need to equip individuals with an under standing of personal and economic change is critically important, as well as strategies to thrive on that change. This is happening with an increasing emphasis on notions like lifelong learning, and more holistic forms of career counselling.

I do not think we equip people well enough for change and uncertainty. From a personal perspective, the avoidance or lack of acknowledgement of change leads to unexplored lives, timidity and fear. It can lead to a stifling of creative energy and challenging thinking. From a national perspective it is no better as it can lead to an inflexible and resistant labour-force–and I include both employers and employees in this analysis–that focuses upon preserving a short-term status-quo in the face of profound change. Economically we live in interesting times, and we haven’t really seen even the true start of the impact of Asian economies on western economies.

I’d like to see a greater emphasis on the question of purpose in career development, and more emphasis on researching early childhood experience and the development of career thinking. Children seem to learn early on that play is fun but irrelevant, and work is relevant but not fun. Why is this, and how can this be addressed?

It is long overdue that Aboriginal career development is given significant and long-term support by governments and employers alike. Perhaps a positive to spring from the skills shortage will be a greater determination to reach out, understand, support and include Indigenous peoples more fully and sincerely within the career development family.

How do you see the field of career development in Australia evolving in the next few years? What are some of the challenges?

I’d like to see a greater move to evidence-based practice in careers, and a commitment to supporting far more research with peer review of outcomes. There are too many commissioned reports flying around that have never been subject to rigorous review that are uncritically accepted. In the last month, for instance, I have come across one widely-quoted and unevaluated report on Australian youth, of which even a cursory reading reveals that the conclusions not only do not follow from the data, but indeed are quite contrary. In fact, when I showed this report to my students, unprompted and unanimously they drew the opposite conclusion to the report’s authors. In another report, I heard that parents do not influence careers! We need good quality work to inform professional practice and public policy.

The research strand of the Australian Association of Careers Counsellors (AACC) conference is a step in the right direction. We campaigned to retain the research strand in the Sydney AACC, and Mary McMahon, who was involved in the earlier Brisbane conference, is maintaining the tradition at Perth.

More than 10 years ago, Tony Watts predicted that financial and career counselling were natural bedfellows; perhaps with large numbers of people facing an under-funded retirement, we shall finally see a closer link between these areas. Although it is not explicitly addressed in the standards, it is actually implied in the broad definition of career. Theoretically I think we will see increased cross-fertilisation across disciplines as disparate as psychology, physics, biology, philosophy and theology within career development.

I’d like to see more integration of career education into schools from Year One onwards. I’d like to see career managers available to employees acting like a pro-active Employee Assistance Program, that is, an arm’s-length confidential service to assist and support individuals with their career transitions throughout life.

I think the standards exercise and the Careers Advice Australia initiatives are exciting, and mark a great start. The challenge will be to build on these initiatives and keep both state and federal governments engaged and committed to further initiatives. I also think we need to focus on other major users of career services including business, employees, caregivers and retirees. Education starts in the womb, and we need to embrace the actor Peter Ustinov’s attitude encapsulated in the quote he made on his 75th birthday: ‘I really must decide what to do with my life!’

What about Jim Bright when he is not involved in work or careers?

Oh him! My passions are my family, sailing, jazz music, and my Welsh Springer Spaniels. Indeed I often combine all of these and take the lot sailing, while playing some James Morrison through the iPod and cockpit speakers that I wired up using my O-level in electronics. I was proud of that! We have an old boat called Windy Business II that was named after my first son, but probably better sums up me! One of my favourite things is to gather the family, and some good friends, a cellar of good wine and a little food, and pick up a mooring in a remote spot of Pittwater near the national park, and then talk and laugh the day away. Quite a few Career Industry Council of Australia members and overseas visitors have joined in the fun over the years.

Cricket is another passion. My hero from earlier times was one J.M. Brearley, psychotherapist and English cricket captain. He was described by that 1970s Bankstown philosopher Jeff Thompson as ‘having a degree in people’. I have a photograph of Brearley on my office wall. He is undergoing a career transition, leaving the field after his last innings before transitioning from cricketer to psychoanalyst.

I am also obsessed with comedians. My father saw Laurel and Hardy live on stage and I was brought up on them and the Marx Brothers. I agree with Woody Allen in Annie Hall that if life seems to be getting on top of you, watching the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup is a perfect antidote. If you want to see a good example of non-linearity at work, watch Hellzapoppin’ (1941). When I train careers advisors, I recommend that they watch the Wizard of Oz, Annie Hall and Educating Rita.

Actually, that reminds me of a time at the Adelaide AACC conference a few years back. Robert Pryor was chatting to film expert Peter Krausz. I was barely able to follow their conversation about existential motifs in Russian movies, when the ever-charming Peter, trying to be inclusive, turned to me and asked, ‘What was the last film you have seen, Jim?’ to which I had to reply–and recall I take my kids to conferences often–’Thunderpants’, a movie about a boy who farts a lot. Not quite Ingmar Bergman, and perhaps a perfect metaphor for my career, it is now a running joke when I see Peter!