Thank you to Peter Robertson for this post exploring the trade-offs from career choice in his book Careers and Freedom: A new perspective on career development which has a book launch and author Q&A on 20th October https://trotmandigital.co.uk/product/careers-and-freedom-a-new-perspective-on-career-development-book-launch-and-author-qa/

One of the first jobs I had involved washing dishes in the café of a high street department store. As a teenager I had no interest in the role, it was just a way to get money. I was required to clock in and out. Like millions of workers whose punctuality was monitored, I would take my card and push it into a clock that would make a noise – a clunk – as it printed the time. But curiously the noise did not sound the same when you entered and left the workplace. At the start of the day it sounded like a prison door shutting. At the end of the day it was the clunk of freedom.

This sense of work taking away one’s freedom is a widespread experience. Many jobs require surrendering not just time but also freedom of movement (you have to be in the workplace), freedom to dress as you choose, do what you enjoy or pursue personal goals. Throughout history work has often been understood as a burden. Small wonder that young people often seek to postpone career choice – they sense that doing so involves giving up freedoms.

It is unsurprising then that some career coaches hold out the promise of ‘career freedom’ to their potential customers. Withdrawing fully or partially from formal paid employment or seeking more meaningful or creative lifestyles is attractive to many. But it tends to be the relatively wealthy for whom these are viable options. Social justice – and social inequality – can be described using the language of freedom.

There is no doubt that some people’s experience of work involves extreme denial of freedom, in the case of slavery, forced labour, military conscription and prison work. Looking globally this is millions of people. More routinely, all kinds of work involves surrendering some everyday freedoms. Control over your time structure, location, activities, goals and relationships is given to others even where the work is freely chosen.

The reality is that all kinds of choices about work involves trade-offs. I explore this in my new book Careers and freedom: A new perspective on career development. There are no uncompromised freedoms. As a teenager I gave up freedoms to work in shop in return for the freedoms that the pay offered (buying vinyl records and clothes as far as I can remember). In liberal democracies, an employment contract is not a zero-sum game where you lose your freedom. Rather it represents an exchange of freedoms.

The difficulty is that in negotiating that exchange there is rarely a level playing field. Employers know more about the labour market than applicants, and they can pick and choose between many possible recruits. Employers need to employ a specific individual much less than that individual needs an income. Employers have the premises, the equipment, the capital and the networks to generate wealth; individuals have only their labour. The terms of the contract are typically set by the employer. There is a power asymmetry. This matters because it is not enough to make a career choice; the operation of the labour market determines whether that choice can be implemented.

So what does this mean for career development practitioners? A key role is to support individuals to understand and navigate the trade-offs they must inevitably make in their careers. The kind of trade-offs individuals are willing and able to make can change as they grow up, grow older, become parents or carers, and (hopefully) achieve a degree of financial security. It is not enough to choose an occupation; they also need to understand the nature and constraints of the employment relationships they are entering

Another key role for practitioners is to support individuals to exercise autonomy within a context of constraints. This requires teaching career management skills, but also to develop the maturity and confidence to exercise them. It requires recognising the moral right of the individual to make choices for themselves: freedom in career development has an ethical dimension.