This report explores the role that technology has played in the development of the career support market. This market is conceived broadly to include all possible resources that individuals might draw upon to support them in their career development. A key element is the role that is played by public-sector career services and by careers professionals; though these resources are supplemented by services paid for in a wide range of ways and delivered by a range of professionals and non-professionals.

This guide has been produced by the International Centre for Guidance Studies, and aims to provide the information needed to make an informed decision about using social media and select from the vast range of tools that are available. One of the most important things that researchers do is to find, use and disseminate information, and social media offers a range of tools which can facilitate this. The guide discusses the use of social media for research and academic purposes and will not be examining the many other uses that social media is put to across society. Social media can change the way in which you undertake research, and can also open up new forms of communication and dissemination. It has the power to enable researchers to engage in a wide range of dissemination in a highly efficient way.

This paper analyses the current information available (in July 2011) about the changes that are taking place in careers work following recent government policy initiatives and public-sector austerity measures. In particular, it examines the local developments that have emerged in relation to a national policy context in which: • Existing careers work is being radically reconfigured. • The new National Careers Service (NCS) will principally serve adults (apart from its telephone/web-based services, which will cover young people too). • Securing careers guidance for young people has been made the responsibility of schools. • The requirement for schools to provide careers education has been removed. • There has been very limited transition planning at national level: this has led to considerable local confusion. • In particular, there is continuing confusion about the future relationship of remaining face-to-face Connexions services to the NCS, and about the branding of such services. Implications for Connexions services, Local Authorities, schools, new market players and the careers profession are identified.

This article explores the phenomenon of careers blogging. It argues that the blogosphere is an important arena within which people are having career conversations. It then goes one to define a typology of careers blogs which distinguishes between personal career blogs, career support blogs and careers work blogs. The article focuses on a discussion of career support blogs which it seeks to contextualise as a form of career support or career guidance. The article demonstrates that the themes which career support blogs focus on are similar to those which career guidance practitioners focus on in other forms of delivery. Furthermore the business models that underpin career support blogs are also related to broader career support business models. However, it notes that the government pays’ and charity pays’ models are not represented in the sample of blogs identified here. It is possible that the lack of public or third sector funded career support blogs has an impact on the assumed audience for career support blogs. In general it appears that career support blogs are aimed at working adults although this may say more about how public sector funders have embraced blogging than about the inherent suitability of the mode for a wider range of clients. The article finishes by exploring how career support blogging fits into wider careers practice. An argument is made that the careers sector should engage further with career support blogging as it offers a practitioner-led, interactive and cost-effective form of service delivery.

This research paper explores the implementation of The Progression Matrix in schools, colleges and other learning organisations such as training providers. The project builds on existing research on The Progression Matrix and finds evidence which suggests that the approach provides a useful conceptual model around which learning organisations can re-orientate their practice and deliver enhanced progression for learners.

This report describes the findings of research conducted by the International Centre for Guidance Studies (iCeGS) at the University of Derby on behalf of the national HE STEM programme. The research set out to understand how young people conceptualise career vocabulary in order to help those tasked with supporting their career decision making to do so in a way which was both engaging and effective. The research found that there is considerable confusion about a range of career vocabulary both amongst young people themselves and between young people and the adults who seek to influence and inform their careers. This report has also argued that confusion about vocabulary cannot simply be solved by teaching young people the “correct” meaning of different words. The report explores the relationship between the words that we use to talk about career and the way that we think about career. In particular it examines how the different vocabulary and conceptions of career held by young people and adults complicate the career learning that takes place both in school and outside of school. The report notes that current policy suggests that schools are going to have to take increasing levels of control over careers education and a key element of this is supporting teachers and other adults working with young people to talk more effectively about careers and related issues. The report argues that it is important that career educators attend to the career literacy levels of learners and pay close attention to the career vocabularies that they utilise. In particular an argument is made that those young people who are considering STEM careers have additional vocabulary and concepts to learn that relate to the disciplines and sectors within which STEM careers are pursued. The report explores how people talk about career and identifies a range of factors that are likely to influence this. It demonstrates that there is considerable diversity in the ways in which people define and use a word like “career”. It notes that people often use metaphors to describe the concept of career and identifies a wide range of different metaphors that people use. As with the choice of particular vocabulary, the choice of metaphor suggests different ideas about career which educators are likely to want to explore and, at times, challenge. The research was conducted during autumn 2011 and involved interviews with 82 young people, and nine career helpers from schools and organisations largely based in the Midlands. This is a small scale study and the results are therefore presented to open up debate and thinking in this area and do not constitute an exhaustive exploration of the subject. The main findings of the research are presented under five headings each of which represents a major theme of the research.

This article examines the inter-relationship between the internet and career development. It asks three inter-linked questions: How does the internet reshape the context within which individuals pursue their career? What skills and knowledge do people need in order to pursue their careers effectively using the internet? How can careers workers use the internet as a medium for the delivery of career support? The article develops conceptual architecture for answering these questions and in particular highlights the importance of the concept of digital career literacy.

It is possible to describe the capability of an individual to use the online environment to pursue their career as their digital career literacy. It is comprised of a range of different skills including the ability to: search; evaluate resources; communicate; network with other people; develop your reputation; and utilise an ever growing range of tools and environments as part of your career building. In another article in this edition of the NICEC journal Hooley (2012) has defined digital career literacy as encompassing changing, collecting, critiquing, connecting, communicating, creating and curating. This requires both the translation of offline skills and the development of new online ones. This article sets out the experience of running the social media internship programme (SMIP), an intervention to develop students’ digital career literacy at the University of Derby.