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The world of work and career

There is a widely recognised perception that the world and

business environments of most companies today change with

incredible speed and that changes overwhelm both individuals

and organisations. This perception led many to describe the

world as unpredictable, turbulent, complex and confusing

(Capra, 2003; Castells, 2000; Petzinger, 1999; Weick, 1995; 2001;

Wheatley, 1999). If information overload, risk and technological

complexity also enter the picture, it is reasonable to conclude

that not only has interruption, shock and uncertainty become

the normal human condition, but it is also the general condition

and context within which career guidance and counselling are

taking place.

That an increase in complexity has given rise to new work trends

is also not new (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996; Handy, 2001; Peiperl

et al., 2000; Schreuder & Theron, 1997; Walton & Mallon, 2004).

Changes in the world of work caused Handy (2001: 6, 12) to

conclude that it is a new world we are living in, and “it is

absurdly impractical to prepare oneself for the world as it was or

as you would like it to be, when the reality is so different, and it

is arguably immoral to educate others for a life that can’t be lived

as it used to be …”. In the wake of this understanding of the world

and work, the literature on career not only registers a growing

debate about new career forms and new ways of talking about

career, but also the call “for a transformation and redefinition of

career” (Walton & Mallon, 2004, pp. 78, 90).

In this paper we take a step back and ask a very basic or ‘prior’

question: ‘what is a career?’ We take as our point of departure the

assumption that no person can understand something unless that

person has an accurate account of what it is that the person is

trying to understand. It is our belief that an understanding of what

a career is, can improve our understanding of the very nature of

the activities known as career guidance and counselling which

deals with, giving shape to and directing career as an entity.

To ask ‘what is a career?’ is not a scientific question, but an

ontological question, since it pertains to and questions the very

nature of the entity we try to understand. Despite all the

contributions to this field of inquiry, the reader will not find a

single explicit articulation of the ontological understanding of the

very nature of career. What are found are models, theories and

methods of the natural sciences to study human affairs (Greenhaus

et al., 2000; Schreuder & Theron, 1997; Stead & Watson, 2004).

As to the question of what career is, the literature answers in terms

of definition or metaphorical descriptions. As a starting point in

our argument, we will attempt to show that definitions and

metaphors, however useful, are ultimately inadequate to answer

the question of what career is, and thus why we need to answer the

question. We will do so with the help of Heidegger. Heidegger’s

typology of entities gestures that career is an entity, called a work.

We conclude by addressing the implications for career guidance

and counselling of this assertion, ‘a career is a work’.

Definitions and metaphors used to understand careers

The use of definitions and metaphors to understand career pose

several problems. Walton and Mallon (2004: 90), for example,

state that the defining of ‘career’ is a difficult process due to the

multiplicity of disciplines and perspectives involved. In other

words, it is difficult because there are as many definitions as

there are perspectives. The following textbook definitions

capture the conventional understanding of career:

“The sequence of employment-related positions, roles, activities

and experiences encountered by a person” (Arnold 1997: 16).

“A career covers a sequence of positions, jobs, or occupations

that one person engages in during his or her working life”

(Cascio, 1991, p. 190).

Not only is ‘career’ often used as a synonym for ‘career history’ (as

seen, for example, on an individual’s curriculum vitae), as

something that reveals a person’s career ‘progress’, development,

stability (wrongly linked to psychological stability) and change,

but is it also noteworthy that ‘career’ is not deemed appropriate to

apply to people who move in and out of jobs with apparently

random job changes (Kidd, in Warr, 2002, p. 178). Such a career is

presumed to lack coherence. Given the changing nature of our

world, high levels of unemployment in the absence of available

jobs, unexpected retrenchments over which people have no control

and the reality of Handy’s conclusions, the question is whether this

picture of what is deemed to constitute career, can still be

legitimately applied without doing substantial harm to job seekers?

To the question as to how a particular career is to be studied,

the literature points in the direction of sequences of job titles

or occupations (Kidd, in Warr, 2002, p. 178). The career (the

whole) is thus reduced to and interpreted in terms of a few

operational parts. It follows then that what a career is, is to be

found in positions (status), job titles (importance) and work

experiences over a person’s span of life. But is there not

C W T JOUBERT

F CROUS 
Dept of Human Resource Management

University of Johannesburg

calliej@mweb.co.za

ABSTRACT
The literature on career calls for a transformation and redefinition of career. In this paper we take a step back and

ask: ‘what is a career?’. Careers as works are presented; those entities that set up and formed the world in which

humans live and have their being. In describing the characteristics of works and the way in which they set up and

formed a world, we explicate the very nature of career guidance and counselling. In conclusion, we propose an

approach by which practitioners can engage the world that is set up by a work.

OPSOMMING
Die literatuur betreffende loopbaan vra vir ’n tranformasie en herdefinisie daarvan. In hierdie artikel neem ons ’n

stap terug met die vraag: ‘Wat is ’n loopbaan?’ Loopbane as werke word voorgehou; daardie entiteite wat gestalte gee

aan en die wêreld konfigureer waarin menswees uitgeleef word. Deur die eienskappe van werke en die manier waarop

hulle ’n wêreld konfigureer en vorm, voor te hou, verduidelik ons die werklike aard van loopbaanleiding en 

-voorligting. Ter sluiting stel ons ’n benadering voor waarvolgens praktisyns hulle kan besig hou met die wêreld wat

deur ‘n werk tot stand gebring word.

TOWARDS THE VERY NATURE OF CAREER, 

CAREER GUIDANCE AND COUNSELLING

Requests for copies should be addressed to: F Crous, freddiec@uj.ac.za

79

SA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 2005, 31 (3), 79-86

SA Tydskrif vir Bedryfsielkunde, 2005, 31 (3), 79-86



something more, vitally important, missing from this standard

textbook picture or definition of career? As Heidegger (in

Sadler, 2002, p. 47) puts it:

“… a definition is precisely what is least suitable for grasping

an essence [nature]. It is not a matter of capturing this

essence [of what career is] in sentences (or in a single sentence)

that we can repeat and pass on. The sentence as such says least

of all”.

As an alternative to the standard textbook definitions that has

been pressed upon the minds of people for many years, we

might well revert to the use of metaphors to understand the

very nat ure of career. Whereas the importance of metaphor is

generally recognised as a particular way to describe a

phenomenon that is otherwise obscured, it is also true that it

conceals at the same time that it reveals. In other words, it is

not something that can be literally applied. As Morgan (1997,

p. 4) points out, it can only provide a partial picture and, if

taken literally, it becomes absurd. Consider the following

examples.

1. Material or physical object as metaphor for career. To describe or

define a career as a physical object causes people to think of

career, including the human being and the work experiences

related to it, as an object of scientific thinking. It is of course

possible to think in this way about career, because people and

the products of their labour do have physical manifestations.

However, to use ‘vehicle’ (Power, 1988, p. 72), for example, to

describe career is to press upon us images of planning, design,

engineering and management, as something that can be

constructed, analysed and studied like a machine.

“The use of machines has radically transformed the nature

of productive activity and has left its mark on the

imagination, thoughts, and feelings of humans

throughout the ages. Scientists have produced mechanistic

interpretations of the natural world, and philosophers and

psychologists have articulated mechanistic theories of

human mind and behaviour. Increasingly, we have learned

to use the machine as a metaphor for ourselves and our

society and to mold our world in accordance with

mechanical principles” (Morgan, 1997, p. 12).

It is revealing that the word ‘career’ derives its meaning

from two Latin words, “carraria (via) (road) for carriages”

and “carrus” (wagon) (Colliers Dictionary, 1977, p. 149). As

such, it refers to an entity that serves a particular purpose,

that is, to carry a passenger toward a predetermined destiny.

The Oxford Dictionary (1983, p. 475) gives us the following

meaning of ‘passenger’: “ a person (other than the driver or

pilot or member of a crew) travelling in a vehicle or ship or

aircraft; a member of a team or crew who does no effective

work” (emphasis added). If ‘work’ is taken to mean “physical

or mental exertion directed toward a definite end or

purpose; labour; that which people do to earn a living; as

something that needs to be done; undertaking; project and

that which is being accomplished or produced” (Colliers

Dictionary, 1977, p. 1146), then the image of career as vehicle

breaks down because of the passivity implicated by the

word ‘passenger’.

It is worth noting that with the notion of career as

‘vehicle’, the notion of ‘career path’ made its appearance,

meaning ‘a sequential [upward] pattern of jobs’, viewed as

‘objective descriptions of sequences of work experiences’ as

opposed to subjective feelings (Cascio, 1991, pp. 242-243;

Schreuder & Theron, 1997, p. 17). While there has been

significant criticism of career theory’s tendency to

dichotomise (Walton & Mallon, 2004, p. 78), this notion of

‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ has another very damaging

dimension to it: when ‘objectively’ viewed by an outsider,

the meaning allocated to someone’s career becomes

divorced from the meaning the participant attaches to

particular work experiences. Not only is the question who

can describe the meaning of career, but also whether

‘objective descriptions’ can be divorced from the subjective

feelings of the one doing the description?

2. Non-human organisms as metaphor for careers. The use of

biological metaphors and analogies to study entities has

become a popular and preferred way of thinking and talking

about studying entities. This is especially evident in the

social sciences, systems thinking and complexity theory. In

the area of organisational theory, Morgan (1997) notes that

over the past sixty years, mechanistic visions have caused

many organisational theorists to use biology as a source of

ideas for thinking about organisations and phenomena

related to it. “In the process, organisational theory has [itself]

become a kind of biology…” (p. 34).

To describe career as an ‘octopus’ (Power, 1988, p. 72), for

example, is to suggest two things: (1) career is a living

entity that lives in and interacts with an environment

through a process of interpretation or other cognitive

processes, and (2) the interplay of parts form the entity.

Hence, references to career in literature as ‘career systems’

(Weick, 2001, pp. 208-209) as ‘self-designing systems’ and

the ‘need’ inherent to such systems to continually update

itself, as a significant source of adaptation. Understanding

career in those terms are problematic, for it seems that

purpose, intentions and the ability to learn are assigned to

the system and not human beings.

To view career as a non-human organism that adapts to its

environment certainly opens up thinking about career in

ways machine metaphors do not allow, but clearly, it is

indelicate to suggest that a career can ‘live’ in an environment

the same way an animal or tree does. While systems theory

may provide the ‘insight’ that the whole is more than its

parts, it is also clear that parts in a career do not relate to each

other in the way they do in humans.

3. The human being as metaphor for career. The literature on

careers reflects another tendency by theorists, namely, to

anthropomorphise career and in so doing, understand and

explain career in terms of the psychology of human beings.

Such tendencies are evident, for example, in descriptions of

career as a ‘self-designing (self-organising) system’ that has

the inherent ability to ‘update itself’ (that is, by ‘continuous

learning’), the ‘boundaryless career being able to enact the

boundaryless organisation’ (Weick, 2001, p. 208-209) and

‘careers as repositories of knowledge’ (Bird, 1996). Although

these ways of talking about career include reference to the

human element that is very important in itself, the

impression it leaves is not only that the career can do things

that humans do, but also that they can do these things

separately from the human. The question remains, however,

whether they get any closer to an understanding of the very

nature of career? Is it possible for a career to self-organise

the way a person’s metabolic system can? Can a career learn

anything and so build know-how that can then be used to

create poetry? What about ‘career management’? Can a

career be controlled, ordered and trained the way an animal

can be controlled or trained? Or is the underlying implicit

and indirect understanding not perhaps that ‘career

management’ refers to the control and ordering of the

person in accordance with a predetermined set of goals or

‘career path’?

Hall and Mirvis (1995, p. 333) argue that, because of

imminent changes in the world of work, careers have to

become more ‘protean’. The term protean here is taken

from the Greek god Proteus, who could change at will.

Again, is career an entity vested with will? It seems that

Hall and Mirvis are actually telling us, indirectly, that

people have to develop more flexibility in their work

repertoire, that is, the ability to move among and within

jobs, professions or occupations. What this tendency to

anthropomorphise underscores is, however, that humans

JOUBERT, CROUS80



can only understand that for which they already have some

sort of background that allows them to interpret and re-

interpret their environment.

All three cases show that career is something: an object, an

organism or a human being. What they also show is that the

use of metaphor is neither intended to hold under all

circumstances nor is it to be accepted comprehensively when

applied to career. Nonetheless, if used frequently enough it can

acquire the status of fact and does it lead to particular ways

people see the world. The machine and organism metaphor

treat people, for instance, as ‘resources’ that have to ‘fit into’

an organisation the way parts fit into a machine. Is it any

surprise that Parsons (1909), considered to be the ‘father’ of

psychometric testing, produced the notion of ‘person-

environment fit’ as the main construct for career decision

making, at roughly the same time that Taylor (1911) and Fayol

(1916) revealed ‘scientific management’ and ‘general

management’ theory respectively? As Kidd (in Warr, 2000, 

pp. 181-182) pointed out, it was from this time that thinking

about occupational choice was increasingly dominated by the

assumed need to generate valid and reliable data about

individuals and jobs. Psychometric tests were developed, first

to assess aptitudes and later occupational interests.

It should be apparent that physical object, non-human

organism or human metaphors are limited to being only

metaphors, that different schools of thought are based upon the

use of different metaphors as a foundation for inquiry “through

which theory and research can be conducted” (Morgan, 1980, 

p. 607). If a human being, for example, is thought of as a

rational animal, then theories will develop that befits the

underlying presuppositions. However, if this theory turns out

to be superficial, all hard work will have been in vain. Because

all metaphors and theories are strongly paradigmatic (Beach,

1997) and, therefore, rooted in different realities (Berger &

Luckman, 1966), they give rise not only to different ways of

thinking and talking about career, but they also have different

implications for career guidance and counselling.

From our discussion thus far, we conclude that understanding

career in terms of the standard textbook definition, that is, via

its operational parts, does not yield a good understanding of

career. As Heidegger (1993, p. 148) puts it, “a thing is not

merely the aggregate of traits, nor an accumulation of

properties by which that aggregate arises. A thing … is that

around which the properties have assembled” (emphasis

added). Whereas the use of metaphor illustrates and allows for

fresh perspectives on how to deal with or conceptualise

career, it does not answer the question of what career is. One

implication of metaphorical descriptions of career is, of

course, that careers are never studied as they actually are, that

is, as entities in their own right.

Our aim is thus to achieve an understanding of the very nature

of career, as that entity around which operational aspects are

assembled. We suggests that a better understanding of career is

gained by thinking of career, not in terms of metaphor, or in

terms of its constituent parts or characteristics, but as a

particular type of entity, that is, the way it actually is. We

propose that this entity can be called a Work. It follows that

actions available to career guidance and counselling

practitioners can be altered by the way in which they

understand career.

Works and world

We encounter several entities that do not primarily exist as a

physical manifestation, yet which are real. Examples would be

philosophy, poetry, religion, symphonies and the laws of physics.

Heidegger (1993) refers to such entities as works. World serves as

the key concept along which Heidegger (1993; 1995)

distinguished different types of entities and their way of being.

Physical objects are characterised as ‘without world’; no

possibilities exist, for example, for the stone. They lack access to

themselves or an environment. Thus, to be a thing without a

world is not something amiss, since it has never been a realisable

possibility in the first place.

Because non-human organisms react ‘instinctively’ in a

stimulus-response way to disturbances in their environments, as

they are genetically ‘programmed’ to react, they relate to their

habitat in a ‘dazed’ way. It is dazed because they lack language,

the capabilities to interpret things the way humans do, reflect on

its own condition or think about future possibilities of living.

They are accordingly characterised as ‘world-poor’ (Heidegger,

1993, pp. 212, 229-230; 1995, p. 236).

It is ‘openness-for-being’ and ‘openness-for-world’, that is, the

human being’s ability to form and shape a world, which

principally distinguishes human beings from physical objects,

animals and plants (Heidegger, 1977; 1995). Humans have world

by virtue of ‘being-in-world’, and form world by virtue of being

open-for-world. In other words, ‘world-forming’ does not refer

to something like a programme, as something that a person can

pick up on a Monday, drop on a Wednesday and take up again

on the Saturday. Human beings are always in the middle of

something and for this reason is the project of forming world

something that belongs to the very nature of human beings and

can therefore not be seen as an occasional activity.

“The human being as human being is world-forming. This

does not mean that the human being running around in the

street as it were is world-forming … The Dasein [openness-for-

being] in the human being forms world: (1) it brings it forth;

(2) it gives an image or view of the world, it sets it forth; (3)

it constitutes [makes it what it is] the world, contains and

embraces [grasps] it” (Heidegger, 1995, p. 285).

Works are characterised as entities that set up and open 

up a world (Heidegger, 1993, p. 170). However, world here 

does not refer to the sum of all observable objects or 

things, or of one object inside another (as in Cartesian

dualism). It refers rather to what we read in the newspaper,

for example, when the ‘world’ has been torn by conflict 

and strife, meaning the world of international relations, or

the ‘world of a mathematician’, meaning ‘the realm of

possible mathematical objects’ (Heidegger, 1962, p. 93), or 

the ‘world of careers, career guidance and counselling’,

meaning the realm of care, possibilities and possible practices

relating to another human being’s way of living in a

meaningful and significant whole.

It is thus a world that provides a frame of reference on 

which people ‘place’ the several objects that confront them 

in experience. Such an understanding of the world projects

a human frame of reference upon phenomena and 

categorises them in accordance with this frame of 

reference. World is the ultimate reference point, which 

means the referent ial and significant whole within 

which practices have meaning and human beings can 

make sense of events, things, interruptions, animal and 

plant life, including themselves.

It is therefore world that permits for the possibility of ‘a world’

in the first instance. It follows that whatever presents itself to

human beings in the world is seen as something. In the world

of carpentry, a carpenter’s drill shows up to drill a hole into

wood or fixing a broken staircase. Similarly, in the world of a

carpenter, wood shows up as an opportunity to build a

number of house roofs, while in the world of the cabinet-

maker the same wood shows up as an opport unit y to

manufact ure wall units. Because the carpenter and the

cabinet-maker live in two different worlds, the wood shows up

as something and is thus intelligible to both. This

interpretation contrasts with the Cartesian notion of a world

that is already “out there”. The world “worlds, and is more

THE NATURE OF CAREER AND CAREER GUIDANCE 81



fully in being than the tangible and perceivable realms in

which we believe ourselves to be at home. World is never an

object that stands before us and can be seen” (Heidegger, 1993,

p. 170). In other words, it is world that shows things the way

they are, and what things show up as is what Heidegger (1962,

p. 256; 1993, p. 187) refers to as truth and actuality. It can thus

be said that a work works when it worlds.

Because works are created and “gives to things their look and to

human beings their outlook on themselves” (Heidegger, 1993, p.

168), the next section will focus on lifework to explain the entity

called ‘career’. The aim will be to show that lifework is an

expression of who and how it essentially is, instead of a mere

metaphorical description of it. In other words, the argument is

that lifework, the work of every human being, is a work of being

that sets up a world.

Lifeworks

Whereas ‘life’ usually refers to biological life or people’s

business, social or pleasure activities (Oxford Dictionary, 1983, p.

376), ‘life’ as used here, denotes a person’s way of Being rooted

in a particular quality of existence (Colliers Dictionary, 1977, p.

590), in the sense of over a person’s ‘span of life’. Work refers to

the realm of working, that is, that which works. This is no small

matter, because it is easy to fall into an unfit interpretation of

the nature of the working. Heidegger (1977, p. 159) says:

“‘To work’ means ‘to do’. What does ‘to do’ mean? The words

belongs to the Indo-German stem dhç; from this also stems

the Greek thesis: setting, place, position. This doing, however,

does not mean activity only; above all it does not mean

activity in the sense of action and agency”.

Since ‘working’ is, according to Heidegger, a doing, and

unrelated to the human activities of producing – things like

houses, tools and pictures, and work activities such as

sewing, brewing or weaving, it does not have a connotation

with ‘efficiency’ and ‘effectiveness’. Heidegger locates the

‘doing’ of something in its Wesen (1977, p. 161) and means

“that something comes to stand and to lie in unconcealment

[truth]” (1977, p. 160). ‘Work’ comes from the Greek word

ergon, which is a self-bringing-forth into full presencing;

ergon is that which is the genuine and highest sense presences

[an-west] (1977, p. 160).

Because Wesen has the same word as währen (‘to last’ or

‘endure’), lifework thus denotes the meaning of a true, authentic

and enduring work over every person’s span of life. As such, it

means neither a theoretical object nor a theoretical way of life

(bios theõretikos) in the eye of an ‘objective’ beholder, or bios

praktikos, the way of life dedicated to action and productivity.

‘Beholding’ such a work is, in its purest form as thinking, the

highest doing. It beholds the openness-for-being in which the

human being exists. We will briefly consider Socrates and

Goethe from whose lives we can gain understanding of the

notion of lifework.

In 399 B.C., three Athenian citizens brought legal proceedings

against Socrates. They had accused him of failing to worship

the city’s gods, of introducing religious novelties and of

corrupting the young men of Athens, and such was the severity

of their charges, they had called for the death penalty. Though

afforded an opportunity to renounce his philosophy in court,

he had sided with what he believed to be true rather than what

he knew would be popular. In Plato’s account he had defiantly

told the jury:

“So long as I draw breath and have my faculties, I shall 

never stop practicing philosophy and exhorting you and

elucidating the truth for everyone that I meet … And so

gentlemen … whether you acquit me or not, you know that I

am not going to alter my conduct, not even if I have to die a

hundred deaths” (De Botton, 2000, p. 4).

Why was he so hated? It could neither have been for his

appearance (for few appreciated his looks), nor for something he

has written (for he left no writings). Socrates practised

philosophy. De Botton (2000, pp. 14-15) states that Socrates’

most curious feature was a habit of asking his fellow citizens to

explain why they had certain beliefs and what they took to be the

meaning of life. He attempted to trap them into giving an

account of their present life-style and the way they have spent it

in the past. For that he was described as a ‘gadfly’, because he

‘stung’ where it hurts. But what was it he was trying to do? He

wanted to tell his fellow citizens that the unexamined life is not

worth living and that it is all right to question the status quo, for

in the city of his day, the opinion of the majority was equated

with the truth. The topics he discussed may be dated, but not the

underlying moral: other people may be wrong, even if they are

in important positions, even if they are espousing beliefs held

for centuries by vast majorities. Soon after the philosopher’s

death the mood in Athens began to change.

The philosopher had predicted that Athens would eventually see

things his way, and it did. He may have been a ‘pain in the neck’

for some while being alive, but through his doing of philosophy

and his death, he opened up the world of Western civilisation

through the writings of Plato that were to follow. This short

description of Socrates’ lifework makes it clear that a work does

not present an overt obviousness. It may perhaps be said that its

truth is (almost always) negative in its first appearance.

A study of Goethe’s lifework shows that nothing was too

important for him to turn his hand and mind to. Not only did

he study law and became Minister of Education and the

Chancellor of the University of Jena, but he was also Director of

the court theatre. Schweitzer (in Joy, 1961) describes Goethe as a

natural scientist, poet, thinker, savant, a person of action, who

loved research and for whom justice was an abiding concern all

through his life. He not only made music, drew and paint, but

also engaged in activities such as engraving, woodcutting and

etching. From the point of view of the standard textbook

definition of ‘career’, Goethe’s lifework would have been looked

at from the perspective of ‘paid employment’. However, for

Goethe it would have meant a carving up of his life, something

he would have viewed with disdain, for he considered his

lifework as a complete whole. In light of this anyone can

rightfully ask, if somebody is employed as a domestic worker,

but is also head of a youth group and a sculptor, would it be

correct to view her lifework mainly in terms of her paid

employment?

What is important to note is that Goethe “constantly transformed

not only himself but everyone who came within the orbit of his

life and work” (Friedenthal, 1993, p. 19). For him, it was through

action that people best give an account of themselves. To the

question of how a person can best understand him/herself,

Goethe replies, “Try to do your duty and at once you will know

what kind of [person] you are”. What is duty for Goethe?

What everyday wishes you must ask.

Each day will tell you, this your task.

Take pleasure then in what you do;

The work of others honor too.

Let no man ever make you hate;

For all else to God entrust your fate.

To self be true, and true to others … (in Joy, 1961, p. 52)

According to Heidegger (1993, p. 168) all works have an arresting

presence, something that stands out as striking. Some things,

such as new hairstyles, stand out from the ordinary merely

because they are cleverly designed and innovative, but these are

fads that attract curiosity momentarily and then pass away. A

work, in contrast holds people’s attention at a level that goes

deeper than curiosity; it demands time and reflection. As such,

in other words, lifeworks as works do not present an obvious

JOUBERT, CROUS82



message; they require interpretation. However, lifeworks as

works, are interpreted not in terms of private inner experiences

they evoke or elicit, but the works itself. What attracts attention

then, is what works do; what they open up for human beings to

see and allow other people to share in.

What is manifested in their lifeworks, are the “truth of beings

[that] has set itself to work” (Heidegger, 1993, p. 162). Works

have the power to make people truly notice the being of beings,

instead of taking it for granted, and have the power to bring

forth the being of all other beings. As original works, they thus

have the power to transport human beings out of the realm of

the ordinary and touches them in a way the “shopworn being of

things does not” (Polt, 1999, p. 135). As works, they are

concerned with bringing hidden truths out into the open.

Lifeworks, as works, speak on their own terms; they say

something only they could say. They let people see who they

are, have been and can be. It reveals something of a how and

who-being, for example, (1) a human being (as opposed to as

a ‘thing’); (2) the carpenter’s way of being; and (3) people’s

way of living. In terms of Heidegger’s (1977, p. 159) thinking,

“one is what one does. That which ‘does’ in such a sense is that

which works”.

Another aspect a lifework draws attention to is captured by

Heidegger’s (in Dreyfus, 1991, p. xi) concept of Ganzheit,

rendered as ‘totality’ or ‘whole’. What it drives at is the opposite

of a ‘separatist mindset’, that is, a compartmentalising of one’s

living or a split between who/how a person is and what a person

does, hence, a split between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’, or private and

public. What works thus demonstrate is a unity of living, life

lived as a whole. This seems to suggest that if people think of the

totality as constituted of independent fragments, then that is

how they will tend to live and operate, but if they could include

everything coherently, as undivided and unbroken, and without

a border, then their lifework as a work will tend to move in a

similar way, and from this will flow an orderly action within the

whole. In other words, people’s general way of thinking of the

totality is crucial for overall order of their lifeworks as works.

Thus, in taking a stand on their way of being, their lifework as a

whole, a split of the whole into fragmentary and unrelated parts

has no place. It would therefore be improper to say, for example,

“do not mix work and pleasure”, or “do not let your private life

interfere with your public work-life”.

If lifeworks as works are to be considered abstract entities, then

this means that it permits a proper comprehension neither of

existence or the human being’s world or lifework as a whole.

For to define lifeworks in terms of employment related work

experiences and activities is to bracket a person’s way of being

into parts that makes understanding of the whole impossible.

This is a crucial mistake. A person is (teacher) because of what

she does (teaching). In other words, ‘teacher’ does not define

or determine the teaching in the first instance; it is the

teaching that makes her a teacher. Similarly, a person is not a

leader simply because that person has a certain position or

title; it is the actions that define the person as leader. However,

if the teacher stopped teaching two hours ago and engages

aeroplane flying now, can it still be said she is a teacher, or is

she a pilot now?

Segmentising (bracketing) a person’s lifework into bits is thus to

deny human beings a world, a coherent and referential whole.

For every activity the human being engages in, including

employed work (for example, secretary or gardener), provides a

context or world in which people encounter themselves as who

they are. To view a person’s lifework only in terms of employed

work experiences is thus to mistake a derivative mode of being

for the significant mode of being (existence). Heidegger (1962, 

p. 33) calls it ‘derivative’ because it comes into focus when

people disregard the referential totality of those practical and

personal concerns that make up the everyday world.

A stone is; the human being exist, that is, it has the ability to

‘stand out’ in contrast to mere lying around. It follows 

that self-interpretation and understanding are unique

characteristics that only belong to the existent human being.

The human being is thus “ontologically distinctive in that it is

ontological”. With the distinction between the ontical and the

ontological, Heidegger draws attention to the difference

between two ways or modes of existence and two ways of

understanding a human being. The first, the ontical, refers to

the level of the empirical sciences, such as psychology, which

concerns itself with empirical properties and fact ual

explanations of the human being (Philipse, 1998, p. 17) and

that which concerns beings in everyday existence, for example,

such as a job and worries about how to pay off debts. On this

instrumentalist level, everything is approached as a means to

an end. It is momentary and segmentary, and refers to

occupations in an establishment that keeps people busy by

means of a ‘carrot-stick’ methodology (Guignon, 1993, p. 230).

In this way of living, everything a person does is in order to get

something; it is episodic, and hence lacks overall purpose and

significance. They are activities that a person would avoid if it

were possible to do so. Heidegger refers to this as an

‘inauthentic’ way of being.

The ontological, in contrast, refers to that which concerns

ways or modes of being, which manifests a lifework (that 

may include jobs, in the sense of earning money in order to

live, although the motive of wealth is not its primary

concern). On the ontological level, actions are not just 

routes in themselves, but they are ‘for-the-sake-of-being’ in

some specific way, that is, the actions and the doings are 

part of being a person of a certain sort. The point is, 

although the actions are the same in both cases, the qualit y

of living will be different. Ultimately it is a choice; a person

can choose to live on the ontic level and interpret him/herself

as things to be used by others and who only operate on the

means-end scale, or can choose a mode of living which means

a way of acting and doing for the sake of being a person of a

certain kind. The latter mode of being Heidegger calls

‘authentic’ living.

A student of physics, for example, is not simply learning facts

about the material world, but is learning how to do physics – the

student is becoming a physicist. Thus, the physicist student is

best understood, neither in terms of a seeking of innate abilities

in him/herself nor as accumulating facts about the world. In

Heideggerian terms, the student is learning how to go about in

the world in a certain way, for instance, as a physicist or medical

doctor. In other words, what the student is, is inseparable from

what s/he does.

Understanding is thus more primordial than the disclosure of

possibilities. Focusing on the discovery of facts (psychological

needs, interests, values and preferences) of oneself will obscure

the dimension of disclosure. Indeed, it is disclosedness (the way

of a person’s as – hermeneutical as) that makes discovery

possible in the first instance. Discovery of one fact after another

would not generate understanding of a world that is meaningful

and significant, but only a disconnected aggregate.

Understanding is thus about relations and situations in a

meaningful whole.

Lifeworks, as works, are world-transforming events; it gives

people (and those who share in that world) a coherent focus and

direction for their lives. In other words, a work is also a world-

defining work. It gives entities its identity, that is, a who and how

they are. It also tells people what is at stake, what is measureless,

what is not yet mastered and what is still concealed and

confusing – thus in need of a decision. Through the work, the

“dawning world brings out what is as yet undecided and

measureless, and thus discloses the hidden necessity of measure

and decisiveness” (Heidegger, 1971, p. 63).

THE NATURE OF CAREER AND CAREER GUIDANCE 83



Heidegger (1971, p. 70) stays that because truth always happens

through being articulated or composed, all works are

essentially poetry, in the broadest sense of the term. Because

poetry speaks, articulates (makes things intelligible), opens up

(reveals), calls into being and put things up for decision (for

example, worthy and unworthy causes), it can initiate a new

beginning for a people.

“A great work of art therefore can inaugurate a new

beginning for a communit y. What before had been

humdrum and self-evident suddenly stands forth as strange

and challenging as a result of this reconfiguration of the

world: the work contains ‘the undisclosed abundance of the

unfamiliar and the extraordinary, which means that it also

contains strife with the familiar and the ordinary’”

(Heidegger, 1993, p. 23).

It thus plays the role of founding (denoting an origin) and

defines the tasks for future preser vers whose world has been

opened up by the work. In other words, this discussion of

lifeworks leads us to lifework guidance and counselling. If we

accept that a career is a lifework, then the art and science of

creating, attending to and assessing a lifework must be the very

nature of lifework guidance and counselling.

Stewardship as a work that creates and preserves a lifework

Acknowledging a career as a lifework provides us with a new

starting point for thinking about the task of creating and

preserving a lifework, a task that is referred to as ‘career

guidance and counselling’, which stems mainly from the field

of ‘vocational’ (Brown et al., 1996) and ‘organisational’

psychology (Arthur et al., 1989). The image of the guidance

and counselling practitioner that derives from this literature

can be described as that of the detached scientist, observing

phenomena in an objective manner, in accordance with which

phenomena can be designed, planned, managed and

developed in a predictable way. For Heidegger (in Lovitt, 1977,

p. 14), with science the objectif ying of everything began the

kind of revealing that dangers the very nature of what it

means to be a human being. Not only is it geared to the

purposes of manipulation and control, but it is also providing

the blueprint for transforming the world into sheer resource

or mere equipmentality (means-to-an-end).

In the world of science, whatever is quantitatively analysed and

scientifically processed has credibility and whatever escapes

calculation is eliminated (Morgan, 1997, p. 240). This becomes

evident in pre-employment ‘personalit y profiles’ and

measurements according to which people are judged and

reinterpreted for the purposes of determining suitability for

jobs and predicting the possibility of later movement, and

career succession and planning according to predetermined

career paths and organisational ‘charts’ (‘organograms’). What

is left out of the equation is the spirit of the human being. It

is therefore no surprise that one critic refers to the human

relations school of thinking and ‘industrial’ psychology as “the

maintenance crew for the human machinery” (Kanigel, 1997, 

p. 17). The most damaging effect is the possibility of failing to

recognise works as works, which in turn means a failure to

help others creating true and original works to set up a

particular world.

In contrast to technique that makes things to happen in cause

and effect terms, we propose stewardship as a work of art that

does not manipulate or move things in a physical sense. Creating

is first and foremost bringing-forth the unconcealment of being

in the work (Heidegger, 1993, pp. 159, 197). Works show entities

in a whole new way; they affirm their very nature in a way that

was previously unknown. This means that thinking is not

divorced from action. Just as the philosopher cannot think

philosophy without practicing it, so the artist cannot think the

painting without seeing it. In other words, stewardship requires

presence in the lifework.

Thus, rather than viewing lifework in a detached manner, it

means a process of participation and world-creation. Instead

of operating on a lifework, it functions within the world that

is set up by the work, that is, the referential and significant

whole. This means that it is essentially a sensemaking process

(Dreyfus, 1991, p. 10; Weick, 1995), an ongoing process of

making sense of that which people are already in and in which

they want to be. In other words, it is a process of working out

references, uncovering the meanings that they give and

understanding how the work hangs together as a whole.

Because stewardship is a work and therefore a lifework too, it

works when it worlds.

Since sensemaking is about the world (Weick, 1995, p. 132), in

the following sections we suggest three questions that can

direct career counsellors’ (‘stewards’) efforts in order to

meaningfully engage career counselees (‘journeyers’), which

can ensure a satisfactory, authentic and more or less safe

journey through life.

1. What Kind of World Would You Like to be in?

This question does not relate or refer to the standard

interview question posed to a job applicant of, namely,

“Where do you see yourself in five years time?”. The

question has nothing to do with occupation, position or

business organisation. Neither does it refer to a personal

‘vision’. It rather relates to the issue of lifework that refers

to and suggests everything the lifework sets up, give shape

to and is to share in, in an indirect way. This question takes

the journeyer back to Socrates and Goethe, human beings

who have made something of themselves and whose

lifework provided things with a look and human beings

with a certain outlook on themselves in truth or

unconcealment. It is a question that relates to the mode or

way of one’s Being and the impact and enduring influence

thereof upon others. In other words, it places journeyers

before the fundamental question of their existence about

whether they wish to stand out or merely lay around (and be

treated like a thing).

Asking about the world thus leads to a re-examination 

of one’s self and the qualit y of one’s actions. Put

differently, taking world as a point of depart ure 

would allow for an examination of lifework and, by 

so doing, uncover the lifework as it now is and as it can 

be. It also means, by implication, that a lifework can 

be assessed through looking at what its world does for

human beings. Is it a world that elicits fear from people 

or is it a world that constantly draws people into its ever

expanding horizons?

2. What Will You Allow in that World?

Of course a person’s lifework is not without actions.

Engagement with any world is about actions being 

taken in that world. Therefore, to have impact, the actions

have to be of a certain kind. Irresponsible and

inconsiderate actions that harm the dignit y of human

beings may not yield the results a person is looking for. In

other words, a person is a parent, a teacher or leader

because the person engages in activities that reveal who

(and how) the person is. Seen in this way means

assessment starts with actions rather than cognitive

processes and ident ificat ion of temperament or

personalit y t ypes. It also means that a person will only

know whether actions taken and decisions made were

correct after the fact of having been taken or made. In

other words, to make sense of one’s actions is a process

that works in retrospect and it is ongoing.

Actions will therefore have to be taken in accordance and

consistent with the message to be communicated by the

lifework. It means that actions cannot be taken in a

carefree manner, or without limits, or out of character.

Because journeyers are confronted with various maps and

routes to certain sure destinies, all the while promising

JOUBERT, CROUS84



various benefits and privileges on arrival, they will have to

read the ‘signs’ on a particular road very carefully and

ascertain whether they are consistent with the world they

wish to establish. If ‘maps’ here are understood in a

metaphorical way, then it is clear that not all routes ‘lead to

Rome’, so to speak.

Being en-route means travelling under constraints. It is these

very constraints that sometimes draw people to lifeworks in

the first instance. In other words, self-imposed constraints are

definite features of identity, for example, a refusal to engage

in discriminatory practices or treating people as disposable

parts in a machine.

3. What Actions Will Uphold and Sustain Your Lifework as

an Original Work that Sets Up a World?

If our age is indeed what an increasing number of people

describe as the ‘information age’ (Castells, 2000; 1997;

1998), if uncertainty and turbulence have indeed become

the essence of the contemporary scene, then it is reasonable

to say that flexibility and innovation are two requirements

for living in this world. Through continuous learning the

journeyer can make this capacity possible and enrich

him/herself. Learning is outward looking, mind opening

and promotes tolerance, respect and understanding of

others. To learn means that responsibility and ownership lie

with the journeyer.

Learning is, however, also a partnership; it requires

interaction and is only truly enjoyable and fruitful if it

yields results to the benefit of other people as well.

Assessment of a lifework will therefore confirm progress

rather than brand failure. Partnership is one way to attend

to a work. A partner can serve as a sounding board, as guide

on a person’s journey; a partner strengthens independent

judgement in the face of a majority and enlarges the pool of

data that are considered. Partnerships are likely to endure if

they build on mutual respect, trust and honesty, which will

not allow for the deprecating of others or oneself. In the

final analysis, any action is allowable, provided it is not

inconsistent with the work the journeyer wants to set up,

shape and share with others.

CONCLUSION

These questions points towards a way by which stewards 

can create, shape and give direct ion to a lifework. 

Providing blueprints for action is an impossible undertaking,

since there is no sure way of bringing-forth extraordinary

works. However, asking and answering these questions is an

ongoing process. In the world of work (jobs) the focus and

at tent ion shif ted toward externalit ies, as the main

(sometimes the only) source from which people derive

meaning. We propose that people want something more.

Implicit in our understanding of career is that, that

‘something more’ is not work (mere employment activit y or

a job), but a search for place and placement, that is, how

people can make their lives work.

We proposed that every career is necessarily a lifework, a

work of being; it always sets or opens up a world that 

serves as a source of inspiration, even if the world that it sets

up is not one with broad appeal. To be on a journey does not

mean to repeat the past or getting stuck into one place. It

rather implies advent ure and a creative process, full of

surprises, interruptions and uncertainties. It is therefore

something people are at libert y to determine; they do not

have to be slaves of a so-called ‘environment’. Understanding

a lifework this way means that people have to mind their

words and actions since they set up a realm of further

possibilities pertaining to themselves and others sharing in it.

A lifework, then, by creating a particular world, determines

what is important.

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