2.3: Eliciting Client History, Strengths, and Needs

I like to take a retrospective approach once we discuss the client’s current reality. The primary goal is to learn about their career patterns (or history), strengths, and needs. This part of the conversation also supports the development of an empathic relationship with the client.

A good way to elicit a client’s history is to ask a series of open-ended questions in chronological order. Open-ended questions encourage clients to think and not simply answer with a monosyllabic response. When discussing a client’s history, focusing on the transitions from one life stage to another is always helpful. Start with a foundational question like, “Where did you go to school?”

There are many directions that this part of the conversation can take. Allow a client’s interests to guide where the questions flow. If they remember high school years well and are animated when talking about them, you can allow details to emerge from there. Or perhaps they remember their first job best. Following up with questions in a chronological pattern can elicit a thorough history from any starting point. For example, if you begin with “What did you do after high school?” You would discover if they went to work or to post-secondary. Then, you might ask the client how they made that choice. What was influencing them? Did they set goals? Who are the key people in their life?

Using Question Sets

Rather than thinking of questions as you go, developing question sets to work from is helpful.  As you ask questions, you can expand or move on to other issues that come up. Your job is to help your client talk out their career history so that you can examine the patterns and themes together. Work through your questions in a relaxed manner, and feel free to explore other related issues that may come up.

Identifying Patterns and Themes

As the client shares their story by responding to your questions, pay attention to the patterns and themes that emerge. Here are a few patterns and themes that often emerge in client histories.

Career Orientation

As your client describes their history, listen for a particular emphasis on specific interests. Are they pursuing a career where they’re constantly trying to find ways to serve and help others? Is their career driven by creating, designing, or building new things? Is there an entrepreneurial orientation? Are they seeking to develop their careers along the leadership path? Are they driven to deepen their skill set? Is there a drive for increased competency in a specialization?

Active vs. Passive

When the individual describes the changes within their career, listen for how they occur. To what extent is the individual initiating the change? Alternatively, are their changes primarily initiated by others? For example, people may wait until they are invited into new roles. Others may choose to act sooner and create their own opportunities.

Individual vs. Collective

One of the essential cultural components of a career focuses on the extent to which the person is centred around an individualistic culture versus a collectivistic culture. Are their decisions primarily made by themselves, irrespective of family and others? Alternatively, is the family an important part of decision-making?

Focus vs. Exploration

What is the nature of their career path? Is there something specific that the individual is moving toward? Does the person appear to be in an exploratory phase? Are they moving around through multiple roles? Experimenting to see what fits?

As stated earlier, we can use our microskills of reflecting and paraphrasing to ensure we hear what is going on and that the client feels listened to.

Reflecting Strengths

When clients share their stories, listen for opportunities to probe more deeply. Even a client who is experiencing many challenges in their life and work will have moments when they feel joy in an activity and a sense of pride in the work that they are doing. It does not matter whether these moments were part of a paid position, a volunteering activity, a hobby, or a parenting experience. Everyone has strengths that show up in different life roles. As clients describe various aspects of their journey, I listen attentively to those special moments.

When we read Lana’s story about the corporate Christmas card, we hear several key strengths emerge:

• Creativity and design
• Engaging the company culture
• Promoting an idea and getting buy-in

I try to ensure that all of my clients leave their first session with an awareness of at least some of their strengths. In my experience, this increases their motivation to engage in the career change process. Through listening, we can identify a client’s strengths and reflect them back to the client. As clients experience hearing their skills shared back with them, excitement and possibilities emerge.  They gain an immediate boost to their self-esteem. They also learn how having an effective career conversation can benefit them.