Foresight for career development

Career planning and development becomes a process of managing learning, experience and change in order to achieve a personally determined, preferred professional future. In the context of dynamic social, economic and technological changes, the role of career counselling services increases, although their character also evolves. New competences and abilities to use innovative tools that enable effective processes of creating career visions in a systemic manner are expected. In this context the adaptation of Futures Studies to both practice and education of career counselling seems to be an interesting prospect. Exploring the future not only develops individual planning and adaptation skills, but also allows detecting and identifying upcoming trends. It means the ability to adapt to new conditions, or proactive creation of the future, in a way that is favourable. The aim of the article is to present comprehensive methodology and the results of a nationwide survey conducted in Poland among practitioners in the field of career counselling. The scope of the study included exploring the potential of foresight methodology and future studies application for education and practice in the field of career counselling. The main focus of the research to examine the current quality and scope of education offer for career counsellors by the disconfirmation between the ideal features of the courses and the individual perception of the courses completed, in the context of building the abilities to apply future-oriented methodologies and tools. Competences in this area were also examined, by assessing both, their level among the practitioners and the assessment of their suitability in career counselling practice. The quantitative research was supported by individual interviews with practitioners and experts in the area of career counselling.