What's in a name?

A rose is but a rose…

It is business card update time again, and with that comes the usual umming and ahhing about what to call my career work.

This dilemma reminds me of the old days of trying to introduce my partner – not my business partner but the man I married. It was astounding how often I’d end up floundering my way through a discussion on tax cuts (my husband is an accountant – and yes, I simply describe him as my husband now).

I have no trouble describing the writing side of my portfolio career – freelance writer sums it up nicely. But describing my career work continues to perplex, and has me flipping and flopping between titles when updating my business card.

So I thought I’d do an informal survey of people outside of the career field to see what they thought about possible titles. The result: even more confusion.

What are the options?

The term career adviser seems too directive, and suggestive of providing information and answers, of being the holder of all knowledge. This causes problems, particularly with secondary school students, who are very keen to try to get us to provide all the answers.

Career consultant creates the image of a corporate identity, which doesn’t fit for me with my mix of private, school and tertiary career work.

I have toyed with career counsellor (indeed it is on my current business card), but people often react to the term counsellor by presuming I’m qualified to help with their family or friends' depression issues, whilst throwing in a bit of career direction. In New Zealand, counsellor seems to infer an emphasis on personal, emotional and mental issues.

Career coach doesn’t do it for me either. To me, a coach is someone who trains, instructs and directs, who walks alongside offering a specific style of facilitation and guidance that I don’t offer. 

And while career worker may seem nice and simple, it also has connotations of workers of the night – and I don’t mean cleaners and bar managers!

More recently, I’ve wondered about the term career practitioner. But aside from it being difficult to spell, it is a term people tend to recognise as a health industry term, such as health practitioner or advanced nurse practitioner.

While informally canvassing colleagues about their titles, I find many struggling with this issue: What do we call ourselves? What are we really? 

One colleague says she likes the health reference of practitioner. She uses it as an analogy: looking at symptoms, diagnosing difficulties, and offering a range of options to become better informed and able to make positive decisions. Another colleague prefers counsellor, because she feels that career issues are also life and personal issues. 

Career agent is the title used by another colleague, who chose the term because she says her role is to walk beside people and assist them to make things happen, and agency refers to momentum or movement. 

I guess the answer is that I do some of all of the above, and therein lies the dilemma. I sometimes provide information and answers, mentor and coach, guide, challenge and facilitate decision making. I also touch on emotional issues surrounding work/life problems. And I definitely work!  

What do we call ourselves?

The question of what to call ourselves arose at national level recently with the change of our professional association from Career Practitioners Association of New Zealand to Career Development Association of New Zealand.

For Auckland University of Technology (AUT) career development programme leader, Dale Furbish, the term practitioner is ambiguous and not representative of the profession. He says the term was originally chosen (back in 1997) because it was the most inclusive language to use for people in the career field, "but it was a compromise, rather than an apparent title".

With no formal agreement in New Zealand about the appropriate term for career professionals … workers … practitioners … advisers … counsellors … agents … coaches … I’m back to square one: What do I put on my business card? 

I don’t seem to be able to find the all-encompassing equivalent of husband or wife for the career profession. Is this because the career field is evolving so rapidly and is so multi-faceted that there is no blanket term?  Then again, is husband and wife?