Creating mosaics: how professional identities can emerge from fragmented careers

In Italy today, as in most European countries, young college graduates start their careers facing very fragmented professional paths, often characterised by short contracts and many transitions. In the current socio-economic situation, where career transitions have replaced job security and individuals struggle to search for meaning and purpose in a ‘puzzle’ made of multiple work and life experiences, social institutions no longer provide the norms with which people used to answer the questions of ‘How shall I live?’ and ‘How should I design my life to achieve my aspirations?’ (Savickas, 2015). Today individuals are bound to answer these questions by building their own life and career projects, trying to give a sense of purpose to the many choices that compose a career. This process can generate anxiety and a sense of uncertainty. It demands that workers learn how to adapt to fluid societies and flexible organizations without losing the ‘thread’ that connects many episodes into their unique career story. How can a counselor effectively support young graduates to navigate our ‘liquid modernity’ (Bauman, 2011) and fluid job market, guiding him/her towards educative experiences and continuous learning? This paper comments data collected during career counseling meetings with Italian university students and graduates in the first half of 2016 and describes the approach adopted by counselors to help them build a professional identity from many and different work experiences, as if they were the tiles of a mosaic.