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Although career construction theory is relevant to today's vocational climate, empirical research into it is scarce. Accordingly, we explored this theory by investigating the concepts, structures and processes that UK-based millennial career changers use to construct narratives allowing for continuity of plot and discontinuity of career direction. Interpretative phenomenological analysis on semi-structured interviews (N = 6) identified four themes: dissatisfaction, realisation, sacrifice and return. The Hero's Journey was identified as an overarching structure for meaning making in career change. Participants assimilated instability and discontinuity into a broader framework of continuity, through narrating a quest for closer alignment between their work and personality. This study provides useful insights into career construction theory and suggests further utility of The Hero's Journey in career counselling/guidance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the application of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) has been reported worldwide, its scientific investigation is limited. Career consulting is one of the fields where NLP has been increasingly applied in Japan. This study explored why career consultants undertake NLP training, and what they find most useful to their practice. Thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with six career consultants, who had attended NLP certification training, revealed that they wanted to learn action-oriented NLP-based coaching skills in addition to their active-listening-based counselling skills. NLP provided frameworks to lead their clients’ thoughts efficiently, deepened their understanding of the human mind, and developed their attitude to understand others and themselves. The NLP skills found most useful were reframing and the Disney strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]