Jenny Bimrose presented at the NICEC international conference (Changing boundaries: career, identity, and self. An international conference on research, practice and policy in career development) on 16 April, 2019 on LMI for All. The presentation examined the integration of labour market information (LMI) with information communications technology (ICT) as a case study of the changing professional identity of career practitioners. It focused on the way that career practitioners, like their clients, operate in increasingly volatile and pressurised work environments, with many now required to work differently in ways that require shifts, sometimes dramatic, in their professional or occupational identity, for example, the integration of labour market information (LMI) through the use of technology, into their core practice. Like their clients, they have to construct their own meaning of work to survive and thrive, with proactivity and adaptivity crucial for navigating their own increasingly complex and challenging pathways. Developments in thinking about identity development at work (Brown & Bimrose, 2015; 2018) led to the idea that learning at work can be effectively supported if it is understood that such learning can be represented as a process of identity development. Drawing on two major IER research studies (LMI for All and EmployID), this workshop focused on the influences of the changing nature, and integration of LMI into career practice through the use of ICT, on the professional identity transformation of career practitioners.

A poster relating to the development of LMI for All was displayed throughout the conference.

References

Brown A., & Bimrose J. (2018). Learning and Identity Development at Work. In: Milana M., Webb S., Holford J., Waller R., Jarvis P. (eds) The Palgrave International Handbook on Adult and Lifelong Education and Learning. Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Brown, A., & Bimrose, J. (2015). Identity development. In P.J.Hartung, M.L.Savickas, & W.B.Walsh (Eds.) APA handbook of career intervention, Volume 2: Applications (pp. 241-254). Washington, DC: APA.