176 journal of employment counseling฀฀•฀฀December฀2011฀•฀Volume฀48 • © 2011 by the American Counseling Association. All rights reserved. coherent career practice Kris Magnusson and Dave Redekopp Coherent career practice is conceptualized as an integrated reciprocal system involving 4 core elements: career literacy, career gumption, career context, and career integrity. Within this framework, clients are clients because 1 or more of the elements is either poorly developed or disconnected from the others. Radical change in the world of work (Magnusson, 1995; Magnusson & Redekopp, 1996) coupled with an array of theoretical approaches and applied strategies to career development may have created the most diffuse and challenging context that employment counselors have ever faced. Unemployment rates (9% in the United States) are as high as they have been in the last 50 years (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011). The outsourcing of jobs to international providers in the manufacturing and information distribution industries has further eroded future employment opportunities, and the jobs of the future are increasingly moving targets. Miner (2010), in a provocative analysis of the Ontario, Canada, job market, has suggested that the combined effects of an aging population and shifts in the knowledge economy will result in “people without jobs and jobs without people” (p. 1). We live in an increasingly complex world, and the strategies for resolving career and employment difficulties have also become far more complex. There are three fundamental tasks for modern career practice: to be able to identify client career development issues that may arise from a wide spectrum of possible causes; to imple- ment strategies or interventions that not only closely align with the real issue but also provide a framework for meeting future challenges; and to help clients develop career resourcefulness, capacity, and self-sufficiency in the management of their career paths. The challenge is to bring the various services and interventions of career development together into a logical framework that builds upon and complements each component. That is what we mean by “coherent practice”: a systematic way of looking at career issues that “stick together.” Coherent career practice recognizes four interrelated elements: career literacy, career gump- tion, career context, and career integrity. It also accounts for career integration, or the process by which these elements are assembled and reassembled. The source of client difficulties may inevitably be traced to a “blockage” in one (or more) of these elements or in the process of integrating them. If counselors can identify the source of blockage, they are more likely to be able to apply or invent interventions that deal with the real issues. CAREER฀LITERACY Career literacy may be thought of as the fundamental tool kit that enables intentional career development. It is a progressively acquired set of skills, knowledge, and attitudes that are re- lated to the acquisition, understanding, and application of information needed to manage one’s own career development. Providing labor market information, developing job search skills, or dealing with employability attitudes are common examples of career literacy interventions. As Kris Magnusson, Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada; Dave Redekopp, Life-Role Development Group Ltd., Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Correspondence concern- ing this article should be addressed to Kris Magnusson, Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A 1S6 (e-mail: kris.magnusson@sfu.ca).