Career writing: Creative, expressive and reflective approaches to narrative identity formation in students in higher education

•Career writing as narrative guidance includes creative, expressive, and reflective forms.•We examined career writing in third-year bachelor's students doing work placements.•Students who did career writing are more able to articulate personal insights and consider action.•Work experience without a dialogue leads to more anxiety and less development of soft skills.•Career writing is a form of dialogue in career learning and contributes to affective career learning.

This study investigates whether creative, expressive, and reflective writing contributes to the formation of a narrative career identity that offers students in higher education a sense of meaning and direction. The contents of writing done by students who participated in 2 two-day writing courses before and after work placements and of a control group were compared. Employers were also asked to evaluate students' performance. Writing samples were analyzed using the Linguistic Index Word Count program and an instrument based on Dialogical Self Theory. Work-placement self-reports were gathered, examined, and used as anecdotal evidence presented in the form of case studies. The results show that career writing can promote the development of career identity and holds promise as a narrative career guidance approach.