Category Archives: Storytelling and Career

I came across the blog of a guy named Greg who is an aspiring writer, and who, as of April 4, was unemployed. His 6-part (so far) narrative of his unemployment makes an interesting entry in the category of storytelling and career. He graduated from college in 2004 and does … Continue reading →

I came across another fascinating piece that relates story to career, in this case the careers of women. Teresa J. Carter conducted a heuristic study in which she was co-researcher with 10 women. She interviewed them and also had them keep journals. Here’s the reference followed by the story-related excerpt:

Carter, T. J. (2002). The importance of talk to midcareer women’s development: A collaborative inquiry. The Journal of Business Communication, 39(1), p. 55+.

Telling their stories to me in narrative format through our conversations and through their journal entries became the means of re-framing identities and gaining self-understanding. Continue reading →

Recently I received an e-mail from Marcia Duffy, who is a personal historian. I find that a fascinating way to make a living, and it’s related to my interest in story and career. Here’s her story of telling the stories of others:

By Marcia Passos Duffy

So many people keep meaning to interview their parents or grandparents — and capture all those entertaining and enlightening family stories. But most people never get around to it, and put it off until it is too late and the storyteller has died or is too sick to tell stories anymore.

This was the case with me. My grandmother died two years ago at the age of 94. She was born in Portugal and immigrated twice — to Brazil then to the United States where she lived with my parents for 30 years — and many stories to tell of her adventures. I was very close with my grandmother, who came to live with us when I was 12. She was a skilled, animated storyteller — as are many people of her generation. Continue reading →

Here are a some articles/blog entries that embody some of what my work is about — connecting story to career: A one-minute story may be key to a storied career by Penelope Trunk, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 7, 2003 Multi-Story Resume, Higher Profile, author unknown Is your resume telling a compelling … Continue reading →

My preliminary literature review for my dissertation touches on using story/narrative in career counseling, but while working on an assignment (from which this entry is adapted) for a class I’m taking through Capella University (Strategies for Career and Life Planning), I was quite surprised to discover several articles on that topic that I hadn’t seen before. “How could I have missed these?” I asked myself — and then I realized that it was because this area of career counseling is so emergent that these articles hadn’t even been published when I was first conducting my bibliographic searches. Continue reading →