04/01/2026

Using Narratives to Explore, Interpret, and Build Nonlinear Career Paths

By Sue Epstein

Today’s employment landscape does not easily fit a career ladder model which is defined by an upward, linear progression through increasing levels of responsibility in the same field with the same employer. While the career ladder metaphor is still commonly used by career practitioners, this path is increasingly not a reality for most workers (Akkermans et al.,  2021).

The assumptions embedded in the career ladder model—long-term employee-employer relationships and a defined, stable set of career opportunities—do not match an increasingly complex employment landscape which includes technological growth, globalized markets, and international labor opportunities. Many workers experience unstable employment conditions including corporate downsizing and a growing gig economy. This creates an atmosphere where workers must be able to respond quickly and effectively to changes in their work roles, places of employment and even to changes in their career trajectories.

New Metaphors and Narratives

What does this mean for career development? Instead of a linear career ladder, a nonlinear path is now the more likely career trajectory. Career practitioners can describe this new model using metaphors such as a winding river with multiple streams and tributaries or use an image of a patch work quilt or mosaic to emphasize how individual pieces can create something larger. As market conditions continue to fuel growth in nonlinear careers, the ability to successfully pivot over the course of a career will positively contribute to career success (Akkermans et al., 2024).

Narratives can be a powerful way to support jobseekers and employees seeking promotions as they navigate this new landscape. Career practitioners can use narrative techniques to help clients reframe past, current, and future career paths and to aid them in developing more flexible career identities (Mate et al., 2024). Here are some practical ways that narratives can be explored, developed, and incorporated into career conversations.

Embrace Modern Career Models

• Use protean and boundaryless (Wiernik & Kostal, 2019) contemporary career frameworks to help validate the reality that most people will have multiple careers and consequently will need to actively engage in career development. This can also spark construction of a new narrative of one’s career path.
• Explore visuals of a nonlinear career path (e.g., winding river, mosaic). This can be helpful in reimaging possibilities (Inkson, 2004) and can replace the ladder metaphor.

Explore the Common Thread

• Look for a common thread woven throughout the client’s career interests and roles that can provide an anchor to the narrative. Chaos theory notes that seemingly disjointed moves can have meaning (Pryor & Bright, 2019). Career practitioners can help clients explore the recurring themes in their narratives and consider how to apply them to new roles. Workers with nonlinear careers can often, when prompted, articulate a common theme (e.g., helping others) but may need help incorporating this theme into their job search.
• Use Holland’s theory of vocational choice and the RIASEC model (Holland, 1997) as an anchor point. Practical tools that are built on this model, such as the Strong Interest Inventory and O*NET Profiler, can help identify stable interests while also enabling exploration of a range of opportunities within the broader themes.  

Focus on the transferable strengths

• Shift from a content-based to a skills-focused mindset. This allows for exploration of how existing skills can be applied to new job contexts (e.g., industries).
• Encourage curiosity about emerging trends and opportunities. Some clients adapt to change quickly and others more gradually, but career practitioners can encourage all clients to practice curiosity about new possibilities. This could mean helping a client explore roles in new startup industries or find programs to help them become proficient in a new software application that could open new career paths.

Incorporate Realistic Expectations

• Encourage clients to cast a wider net during job searches. When clients have a skills-focused mindset, they may be better able to see how they could fit into a variety of roles, organizations, and industries.
• Counsel clients to expect new learning. When clients enter new organizations and roles or work with new colleagues, they should expect a learning phase which may include mastering new acronyms, adapting to new colleagues’ working styles, and understanding new subject matter, and will take time and patience.
• Help clients accept and cope with discomfort. Change may mean commuting to new workplaces, learning new technological expectations (e.g., cameras on or off during video calls) and feeling like an imposter in new roles. Help clients understand that this is normal and temporary.
• Help clients anticipate job changes. The next job may not be your client’s forever workplace, but this does not mean it was the wrong move or that the client won’t benefit from the experience. Current data show that workers typically hold 12.7 jobs with different employers with approximately half of these job changes occurring between the ages 18-24 and the remaining half continuing through age 54 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2023).

The Stories We Tell Ourselves Matter

Helping our clients craft narratives that welcome and facilitate nonlinear career paths can help them experience change, and even uncertainty, in more positive ways. Developing their own stories also lets clients express agency over their career trajectories and provides them with a reliable way to describe their career paths to themselves, colleagues, potential employers, family and friends. Over the long-term, this narrative can allow clients to see personal and professional growth throughout their careers.

References

Akkermans, J., da Motta Veiga, S. P., Hirschi, A., & Marciniak, J. (2024). Career transitions across the lifespan: A review and research agenda. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 148, 103957. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2023.103957

Akkermans, J., Rodrigues, R., Mol, S. T., Seibert, S. E., & Khapova, S. N. (2021). The role of career shocks in contemporary career development: Key challenges and ways forward. Career Development International, 26(4), 453-466. https://doi.org/10.1108/CDI-07-2021-0172

Holland, J.L. (1997) Making vocational choices: A theory of vocational personalities and work environments (3rd ed.). Psychological Assessment Resources.

Inkson, K. (2004).  Images of career: Nine key metaphors. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 65(1), 96-111. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0001-8791(03)00053-8

Mate, S., Gregory, K., & Ryan, J. (2024). Re-authoring career narratives: Exploring identity in contemporary careers practice. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 52(1), 7/18. https://doi.org/10.1080/03069885.2023.2260557

Pryor, R., & Bright, J. (2019). Careers as fractal patterns: The chaos theory of careers perspective. In N. Arthur & M. McMahon (Eds.), Contemporary Theories of Career Development: International Perspectives (pp. 135-152). Routledge.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2023). Number of jobs, labor market experience, marital status,and health for those born 1957-1964. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/nlsoy.pdf

Wiernik, B. M., & Kostal, J. W. (2019). Supplemental material for protean and boundaryless career orientations: A critical review and meta-analysis. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 66(3), 280-307. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cou0000324.supp

Sue T. Epstein, Ph.D. is the owner of Mosaic Worklife (www.mosaicworklife.com), a career and work-life coaching practice. She holds BCC and CCSP certifications and is a professional fellow with the Institute of Coaching with McLean/Harvard Medical School. Sue is also an associate professor at SUNY Empire’s School of Business and Chair of the Department of Management and Human Resource Management. She pursued a nonlinear career path that included careers in banking, marketing, market research and now academia. You can reach Sue at sue.t.epstein@gmail.com.