I’m just on my way back from the IAEVG conference in the Hague. It was an amazing three days and so good to catch up with lots of people who I haven’t seen since before the pandemic. Nothing beats spending time together. The mix of intellectual and social activities is exhausting, but it really renews my enthusiasm for the work that we are all involved in.

While I was there I was involved in lots of sessions, including a very interesting panel and World Cafe session organised by NOLOC on agency and career management. I also co-hosted a workshop with Rie Thomsen on critical theory, which we’ve written up on the Career guidance for social justice website.

But, the official reason that I was there was to give a keynote. I chose the topic of ‘Careering from cradle to grave’ and put together a presentation which argues, firstly that career needs to be understood broadly as our path throughout life, secondly that we need to give people help throughout their lives as they develop their career. Thirdly I argued that governments typically organise career development services poorly and fourthly that we could do so much better.

Along the way I told some stories about me, Boris Johnson, a 102 year old doctor, a skate park in Doncaster and a recycling company in Canada (these were a series of different stories, not one very long complex one). As ever you probably had to be there, but in case you are interested here are my slides.