08/01/2026
Five Reflections for Equity-Informed Career Practice: Moving From Good Intentions to Better Decisions
By Maisie Lynch
From Equity as a Value to Equity in Practice
The National Career Development Association (NCDA) Code of Ethics (2024) calls on career development professionals to understand clients’ cultural contexts, identify barriers, protect client choice, and use assessments responsibly. Equity-informed practice puts those commitments into action by shaping how services are designed, delivered, and evaluated. In conjunction with making decisions about resources available in one’s practice, the practitioner considers how circumstance and systemic barriers affect people’s ability to access and benefit from the resources (Milton Institute, 2020). In other words, the practitioner asks, “Is the practice equitable?”
Clients may face barriers related to finances, transportation, technology, time, social networks, familiarity with education and employment systems, and prior access to career-building opportunities (Duffy et al., 2016; OECD, 2024). Some barriers can be reduced through individualized support. Others, however, are created or reinforced by discrimination, institutional policies, and unequal access to resources. Practitioners should therefore distinguish between barriers clients may be able to address directly and those requiring organizational, community, or policy-level change.
The following reflections offer practical questions for examining decisions.
Reflection 1: Access
Ask: Who can realistically access, participate in, and benefit from this service, and who may be missing?
A service is not meaningfully accessible simply because it is open to everyone. Cost, scheduling, transportation, technology, language, reading level, format, or limited outreach may cause people to still be excluded. The OECD (2024), for example, found that students from migrant backgrounds participated less often in workplace visits, job shadowing, and job fairs despite having high aspirations.
Practitioners should look beyond those who successfully complete a service. Reflecting on who never signs up, who leaves early, or who participates without fully benefiting can reveal hidden barriers.
Reflection 2: Assumptions
Ask: Which cultural, social, or professional norms am I treating as universal?
Bias is a common feature of human decision-making, but it becomes harmful when stereotypes or culturally shaped expectations are treated as facts about an individual (Greenwald & Lai, 2020). Ideas about professionalism, confidence, motivation, ambition, family involvement, and acceptable career paths may reflect dominant norms rather than qualities required for success.
Practitioners should examine which behaviors they support or discourage and help clients distinguish among genuine job requirements, conventions they may need to navigate, and preferences presented as universal standards. Practitioners should also consider whose perspectives they rely on to shape career scholarship and practice, and whose may be missing (Buford & Flores, 2025).
Reflection 3: Agency
Ask: Does this process expand the client’s ability to make an informed choice, or steer the client toward the practitioner’s preferred outcome?
The process involves two people which may mean two different ways of approaching goals. Practitioners bring valuable expertise, but recommendations can become controlling when presented as the only reasonable path. Clients make decisions within the context of their cultures, identities, responsibilities, resources, relationships, and lived experiences, which may be unknown or different than the practitioner’s.
Supporting agency means offering guidance that strengthens the client’s ability to decide. Practitioners can explain options and trade-offs, invite clients to define success, acknowledge power differences, and present assessment results as information rather than prescriptions. This collaborative approach is consistent with research linking the working alliance to career counseling outcomes (Milot-Lapointe et al., 2021).
Reflection 4: Action
Ask: Am I naming the barrier, helping the client navigate it, addressing the barrier itself, or doing all three?
Career interventions often focus on what the client should change: improve a résumé, network more, gain experience, build confidence, or communicate differently. These strategies may help, but relying on them alone can frame structural barriers as individual shortcomings. A social justice approach asks practitioners to consider both the client’s immediate needs and the broader conditions shaping access and opportunity (Arthur et al., 2013).
Equity-informed action combines client preparation with the career practitioner’s role as an advocate and change agent (Hansen, 2003). A practitioner might prepare a client for an interview while questioning an inaccessible hiring process, find paid alternatives to unpaid internships, or support self-advocacy while helping an employer understand accommodation procedures. Advocacy may occur at the client, organizational, community, or policy level (Toporek et al., 2009). It should be undertaken with clients, not automatically for them, and should respect their consent, privacy, goals, safety, and readiness (Fickling, 2016).
Reflection 5: Accountability
Ask: What evidence will show who is benefiting, who is not, and what needs to change?
Good intentions cannot establish whether a service is equitable. Accountability requires using data and research to examine who gains access, completes the process, benefits, or is more likely to leave or be excluded. Monitoring and evaluation can reveal differences among groups that overall participation rates or average outcomes may hide, while research can help practitioners identify more effective and equitable approaches (OECD, 2023; Racial Equity Tools, n.d.).
Practitioners might review who inquires, schedules, cancels, returns, receives referrals, or reports feeling understood. They can also identify forms, assessments, or assignments that repeatedly create confusion or disengagement. Accountability does not require a complex data system; it can begin with noticing patterns, seeking feedback, consulting relevant research, and making specific changes.
Equity as an Ongoing Practice
These reflections are tools for professional self-examination, not proof that a practice is equitable. Policies, technologies, client populations, labor-market conditions, and practitioner assumptions change, so services must be reviewed and revised regularly over time.
Equity does not require identical services for everyone. It requires recognizing when standard practices advantage people who understand the system, have greater resources, or more easily fit its expectations. When disparities are identified, practitioners should change those practices so that more people can participate and benefit.
References
Arthur, N., Collins, S., Marshall, C., & McMahon, M. (2013). Social justice competencies and career development practices. Canadian Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy, 47(2), 136–154. https://cjc-rcc.ucalgary.ca/article/download/60929/46258
Buford, M. V., & Flores, L. Y. (2025). Centering race in career development: A critical review of career scholarship and practice. Journal of Career Development, 52(2), 195–213. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/387154637_Centering_Race_in_Career_Development_A_Critical_Review_of_Career_Scholarship_and_Practice
Duffy, R. D., Blustein, D. L., Diemer, M. A., & Autin, K. L. (2016). The psychology of working theory. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 63(2), 127–148. https://www.drryanduffy.com/uploads/3/1/7/2/31724447/duffy_et_al.__2016__pwt.pdf
Fickling, M. J. (2016). An exploration of career counselors’ perspectives on advocacy. The Professional Counselor, 6(2). https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1114071.pdf
Greenwald, A. G., & Lai, C. K. (2020). Implicit social cognition. Annual Review of Psychology, 71, 419–445. https://faculty.washington.edu/agg/pdf/Greenwald&Lai.AnnualReview.2020.complete.pdf
Hansen, S. (2003). Career counselors as advocates and change agents for equality. The Career Development Quarterly, 52(1), 43–53. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/j.2161-0045.2003.tb00626.x
Milot-Lapointe, F., Le Corff, Y., & Arifoulline, N. (2021). A meta-analytic investigation of the association between working alliance and outcomes of individual career counseling. Journal of Career Assessment, 29(3), 486–501.
Milton Institute School of Public Health (MPH@GW). (2020, November 5). Equity vs. equality: What’s the difference? The George Washington University. https://onlinepublichealth.gwu.edu/resources/equity-vs-equality/
National Career Development Association. (2024). 2024 NCDA code of ethics. https://www.ncda.org/aws/NCDA/asset_manager/get_file/3395?ver=738703
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). (2023). Equity and inclusion in education: Finding strength through diversity. OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2023/01/equity-and-inclusion-in-education_e8cfc768/e9072e21-en.pdf
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). (2024). Challenging social inequality through career guidance: Insights from international data and practice. OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2024/02/challenging-social-inequality-through-career-guidance_be87ce97/619667e2-en.pdf
Racial Equity Tools. (n.d.). Accountability. https://www.racialequitytools.org/resources/plan/change-process/accountability
Toporek, R. L., Lewis, J. A., & Crethar, H. C. (2009). Promoting systemic change through the ACA advocacy competencies. Journal of Counseling & Development, 87(3), 260–268. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6678.2009.tb00105.x
Maisie Lynch, M.S., CCSP, NBCT, is the founder and CEO of ForwardReady U, a college and career counseling practice focused on supporting neurodivergent teens. Her work is shaped by more than 20 years in secondary education, including her current role as a high school Internship and Apprenticeship Coordinator, and adjunct faculty positions at Montgomery College and Frederick Community College. She also serves on the Informed Practice Subcommittee of the NCDA’s Diversity Initiatives and Cultural Inclusion Committee, is an Associate Co-Editor of Career Convergence, and recently co-authored FCD Module 6, Overcoming Employment Challenges. You can learn more about Maisie at https://forwardreadyu.com or connect with her at maisie@forwardreadyu.com