On the pedals of change: The journey of sustainable career guidance with Slow ta carrière
Interview with Aline Muller Guidetti and Sabrina Tacchini
How can we support people differently in a world marked by ecological collapse, social injustices, and transformations in work? How can we step out of “neutrality” and dare to ask the real questions—those of meaning, of impact, of our relationship to the living world and to others?
In this interview conducted by Tomas Sprlak, we had the pleasure of exchanging with Aline and Sabrina, two Swiss career guidance professionals committed to a profound transformation of their practice. Together, they co-created Slow ta carrière, a support programme linking professional questioning, systemic issues, and inner transitions.
With sincerity and lucidity, they share here:
- their personal and professional journeys toward an “off-the-beaten-track” approach to guidance,
- their concrete tools for broadening professional imaginaries,
- the tensions between individual approach and collective dynamics,
- their doubts, hopes, resistances… and above all, their joyful commitment.
A conversation that, beyond the words themselves, invites us to think of guidance as an act of care and resistance in a changing world.
Green Guidance: Let’s get straight to it: could you briefly introduce yourselves, Aline and Sabrina?
Aline: I’m Aline. I live in Lausanne and I’m a work psychologist. I started with training in work psychology, then specialised in career guidance psychology. I first worked in job placement with unemployed people, then with people with disabilities, in reintegration or retraining after health problems.
Ten years ago, I opened my own practice. It was a way to emancipate myself, to be able to do things according to my ethical, social vision. Gradually, I also integrated environmental issues. I was already aware of ecological matters: I haven’t taken a plane for 25 years, we don’t own a car, we try to travel without using too much oil, and so on.
But it was in 2018 that I truly realised that “we were heading straight into a wall.” In 2020, I met Sabrina and Sophie Perdrix through a Swiss network called Sequoia. I wanted to evolve my practice.
I questioned myself a lot: in career psychology, what is my responsibility? Am I guiding people toward jobs that make sense? Or toward jobs that contribute to the destruction of ecosystems? And as a work psychologist, to what extent am I supporting the adaptation of individuals to companies that sometimes mistreat people, that exhaust human and natural resources?
All of that weighed heavily on me. With Sabrina and Sophie, we wanted to adapt our practices. We created workshops, rethought guidance. Sabrina, as a researcher, is now going even further. We are also working on a book. For me, this process began in 2018, and since 2020 it has been taking up a lot of energy, but it’s also highly stimulating.
All these activities I do with Sabrina—this book, these workshops—are also a form of civic engagement. Alongside this, in my practice I work with the disability insurance system in Switzerland, I receive mandates, I run workshops, I deliver training, mainly around guidance, professional reintegration, assessments, and individual guidance (including for people experiencing burnout).
Sabrina: I also studied career guidance psychology. I worked for ten years with an adult audience for the State. I supported all kinds of people: some in professional questioning, others with health problems, unemployment, or precariousness. There were also young people who couldn’t find an apprenticeship. In Switzerland, the dual system allows you to learn a trade from age 15 while still going to school. I myself did two apprenticeships before starting psychology. This system works rather well in Switzerland.
What made my socio-ecological thinking evolve was the fact of supporting people “at any cost.” Unemployment insurance leaves very little time. And that’s when I became aware of the social and ecological divide. The requirement was to find a job quickly, even if it meant working in companies that are highly problematic. I stopped helping people apply to those firms. I told them: “I’ll show you how to do it, but I’m not going to apply for you.” I felt very alone in that resistance. I told myself: “But this isn’t possible; we can’t function like this, sending people to do just anything!”
I was looking for answers. I read Jean Guichard, but there was little on these ethical questions. During Covid, thankfully, I met Aline and Sophie. We were able to create concrete tools. Before that, there were a few texts saying “we should think about this,” but nothing concrete. Shekina had started some things, but there wasn’t yet a real taking on of these issues.
Slow ta carrière was born at that moment. And during Covid, a lot of people began questioning themselves: “Is my job useful?” What is strong about Slow ta carrière is that we didn’t return to the normal path like many did. We really changed direction. For me, on top of that, I had cancer at that time. It was a rupture. I could no longer continue to adapt myself. I went back to study at the University of Lausanne to understand what drives some people to make an ecological professional transition.
For a long time, I’ve also been an activist with Extinction Rebellion and in the Doctors for XR collective. I saw that I wasn’t alone in wanting to transform professional practices, notably in health. Because beyond climate, it’s especially health problems that are multiplying: pollution, food, early cancers, metabolic diseases…
Today, we have a lot of writing on obstacles (psychological, sociological, anthropological…), but little on what motivates adults to change. I went in search of these “people on the way.” That term underlines that there is a plurality of pathways. It’s now been four years that I’ve worked on this at the University of Lausanne. I’m slowly reaching the end of my research. I’ve had the good fortune to have time and freedom to support students, give talks, speak in schools… It’s a privilege to have been able to live a more civic-minded life thanks to this.
Green Guidance: Could you present the approach you have developed in your Slow ta carrière workshops?
Sabrina: At the start, we built the workshops following the classic logic of guidance: questioning yourself first, and then integrating ecological and social issues. But we always go beyond individual interests alone: we question the consequences of one’s choices for others, both human and non-human. We call these “the others, here and elsewhere,” which includes populations in the Global South, North–South power dynamics, and also inequalities within our own countries.
We observed in our research that many people genuinely ask themselves questions about these dynamics of privilege, power, and exploitation. At first, these workshops were mainly aimed at an already sensitised public, like ourselves. But we have made sure the tools can be used with everyone. Aline can talk more about that, because she integrates them into all her practices, whatever the profile: whether people are precarious or not, sensitised or not, engaged or not. We don’t reserve these questions only for the privileged.
Aline: For me, the desire to work collectively came from this observation: institutions and companies still offer very few jobs that are truly up to the ecological and social challenges. And it’s not always through formal training programmes that you find the alternatives.
Working in a collective allows people to explore other paths, and to break the sense of isolation you can feel when you no longer recognise yourself in the world of work. We adapted individual assessments into group formats, systematically adding a relational dimension: in my choices, how do I integrate others, the living world, humans and non-humans?
Concretely, we have integrated this dimension into games, cards, exercises. And I think what really makes a difference is our discourse. We offer another narrative about work. For example, with burnout, we don’t stop at the symptom. We show that it is cultural, systemic, linked to an economic model. We invite people to imagine other ways of living and working. This is a change of reference point, and I think few professionals are doing that yet—or at least not in this way.
We have encountered quite a few constraints, particularly in finding an audience. There was a certain dynamic around 2018, with Pablo Servigne’s book, the resignation of Nicolas Hulot in France… Many factors meant the ecological question was more present.
At that time, a certain percentage of people—still a minority—really became aware of the issues and changed their trajectory. But since then, I have the impression that this has shrunk back a little. Those who had the strength to make the transition have done so. Today, sometimes you have the impression that “the world is moving forward,” that every company has put in place its little eco-protocol—like sorting waste in the canteen—and that this is enough. Or else some people think that nothing can be done. I have even seen people who had begun to question themselves… and who have gone back to the way they were before, or even worse.
As a result, the audience that would naturally be interested in Slow ta carrière is a little less visible. They have already made the journey, they had the strength to do so. Today, I run workshops in an insertion programme with quite vulnerable groups. And I use exactly the same process. In the end, Slow ta carrière can be adapted to everyone.
And if I can already address the question of collective versus individual: for me, it is much easier in a collective setting. My attitude changes. I facilitate, I create safe conditions, but I am not in a face-to-face relationship where I have to carry the bond alone. I am perceived differently. I am there to lead a process, not to be available only to one person. Participants know they take what they want, that they are autonomous. That gives them more power to act.
It is also easier to talk about the state of the world, to convey sensitive or complex information. In individual sessions, the approach is different. There is a greater responsibility in the relationship, and I find it less easy to raise certain subjects.
Sabrina: Yes, the idea was really to bring the collective into the individual. To work differently in guidance. We are used to working in individual consultations, but here we said to ourselves that we had to get out of that pattern. Many people face the same difficulties, the same blockages, and cannot manage to get out of them alone. So why not bring them together? Create spaces where we share, where we move forward together.
Green Guidance: What is specific about your approach compared to a traditional guidance process?
Sabrina: We have already developed several tools that use a different narrative. For example, we started from a very simple observation: classic interest questionnaires like RIASEC often propose items such as “repair a car” or “work in the automotive industry.” That made us pause. So we created our own versions of these tools, with suggestions more aligned to ecological challenges: repairing a bicycle, building dry toilets, developing a cooperative…
The idea is not to revolutionise everything, but to offer, alongside existing tools, others with a different storyline, to make “ecological plan Bs” exist. To show that other paths are possible.
We also designed a card game on major social and ecological issues, which allows participants to place themselves, to identify what touches them, what they would like to join or transform.
We took inspiration, for example, from Doughnut Theory. It suggests that human activities should take place in a safe and just space: not exceeding planetary boundaries (like climate, biodiversity, air quality…) while meeting fundamental human needs. That led us to create tools that cross interests and roles with social and ecological usefulness. And it works very well.
But above all, we go further than simple questions of interests or skills. We ask: Does your work have an impact on someone else? Does it solve a problem, or does it create a new one? Does it improve the situation for people in the South, or on the contrary, does it make it worse? We also include a reflection on private, civic, and community life: how can each person organise themselves so that things improve?
Aline: Yes, and in addition, there’s the change in narrative, but also this idea of making people feel the connections in which they are caught, and those they can influence.
We use classic tools like the life line, but we add unusual questions: Has there been a moment when a political or ecological event influenced your path? This makes it possible to broaden the perspective beyond the work–family framework.
We also offer an “enriching experience”: inviting the person to identify an activity where they were in connection, where they brought something to others. These are dimensions we integrate systematically, but which are absent from classic assessments.
And then, about the relationship to work: as soon as someone is burned-out, we do not stop at the individual. We deconstruct together how the world of work functions. We talk about competition, permanent growth, unattainable objectives. We try to take excess responsibility away from the person, to show them they are caught in a system. That approach alone reduces the pressure. It lowers anxiety. It shifts the responsibility elsewhere, more appropriately.
And to be honest, with Sabrina, we ourselves have gone through a genuine inner transition. This cannot just be “acted.” It has to be anchored.
Green Guidance: And in terms of the impact or the objective of this work, what are your aspirations, your hopes? What do you want to contribute to?
Sabrina: I’m really questioning myself a lot at the moment. Okay, there’s counselling, the work of a career guidance psychologist. But I sometimes feel a kind of despair: couldn’t career guidance also support professionals who are already “on the way,” already in the process of transforming their practices for better sustainability?
I tried this with a group of architects “in transition.” They wanted to transform their way of working, and we collaborated: them in their role as architects, me in my role as a career professional. The idea was to support them in this integration. And I wonder if that isn’t also our role.
It’s not counselling in the traditional sense. It’s psychology of transitions, but it’s not recognised as a classic mission of a career guidance professional. Yet I think we could be very relevant in that space. We know the world of work, we know the dynamics of change. It’s a huge field. Much more than the change theories coming from management or coaching. And I’m looking, but I still haven’t found a theory of inner transitions that integrates the transitions of professional practices. We talk a lot about career change, but not about transformation of work within existing professions.
So for me, there’s a huge potential, a real area to develop. Today, we work with individuals one by one. But going into collectives, into professional associations, and asking: How do we evolve this profession? How do we change our practices on the scale of a group? That would be powerful. That’s my hope.
Aline: Yes, and I think all of that requires a lot of humility. Because it’s enormous. And it takes an incredible amount of energy. Everything we’ve put in place has been very intensive. I’m happy that we can set all of this down a little with the book we’re finishing. It allows us to take stock.
I see myself more in the logic of small steps. A need for coherence: to be a model, even on a small scale. To show that it’s possible. And maybe that will inspire a few people. It’s a long process, but I believe in the snowball effect.
And then, as Sabrina says, we feel there’s a dynamic. With this project, with different practitioners-led initiatives in several countries, like Lab Green Guidance in France for example, I find it brilliant. There aren’t that many of us, but we meet between professionals from different countries. And that lifts you. It supports you. I think that’s already a lot.
And we should say this too: it’s done me good. I couldn’t remain inactive. Inside, it was too strong. I had to get involved. And that pushed me to do things I would never have dared to do: speak in public, take part in media interviews… It gave me incredible energy.
And that’s also what we want to pass on: that not everything is black. That this commitment, this questioning, can be a source of joy.
Green Guidance: What do you say to people who say: “Yes, but we must be neutral, impartial”? What do you think about these ethical precautions that some people raise?
Sabrina: If they’re carbon-neutral, that’s fine by me! (laughs)
It’s a big question, but in fact, we’re never neutral. We have the impression that because we follow the rules of the dominant market, we’re neutral. But that’s not true. In reality, we’re just on the side of neoliberalism, on the side of the oppressors, of power relations. So that’s not neutrality.
Today, the world has gone crazy: geopolitical problems, ecological crises, deaths… It’s become a moral question to take a stand. Before, even Switzerland could pretend to a certain neutrality. But today, that’s impossible. It stirs up emotions, but we take a stand on the side of life. And it won’t please everyone, but morally, we can no longer avoid it.
In guidance, we easily accept saying that a job will be replaced by a machine. But why don’t we dare to say that such and such a sector destroys the living world? Here’s a concrete example: in my canton, there are very few apprenticeship places for social-educational assistants. Three young girls come in with that plan. If we were neutral, we’d say: “OK, we’ll help you.” But no, we tell them: “You need to have a plan B.” It’s based on statistics, yes. But it shows well that we’re never truly neutral. It’s just that certain forms of bias are accepted because they go in the direction of the dominant discourse.
“We’re never neutral. Following the rules of the dominant market isn’t neutrality—it’s just taking the side of neoliberalism, of the oppressors, of power relations. Today, morally, we can’t avoid taking a stand.”
Aline: When we talk about the state of the planet, today no one denies it. No consultant tells us: “No, it doesn’t exist.” Of course, the way we talk about it matters. We can’t always go as far as we’d like, but at least to put the subject on the table, to name it—that, we can do.
Afterwards, it’s true that depending on what the person says, it’s not always easy to position yourself head-on. In an individual meeting, we want to maintain the relationship. We can’t turn it into a debate. But we can inform, raise awareness, open questions.
Sabrina: Yes, and these are scientific facts. It’s not about giving an opinion, but about saying: “There is this reality.” Dozens of studies say that jobs will change. And yet, in an article I recently read about the digital age, there was no mention of ecological crises. That’s the problem with guidance: it looks at one part of reality but not the other.
It’s not just a question of precarity or skills. It’s also a question of justice. The uncertainty of the world of work is not natural. It is produced by political, economic, and geopolitical decisions. In Switzerland, for example, we concentrate enormous wealth. But there are also people in precarious situations, who juggle three or four jobs to survive. So yes, this world is made uncertain. And as practitioners, we can’t pretend not to see it.
Green Guidance: What is the most difficult thing in this work?
Aline: For me, it’s the individual guidance. I sometimes feel that I can’t go as far as I’d like. With some people, it’s possible: they are already in deep questioning, we can explore the relationship to work, consider reducing working hours, think about alternative projects, etc.
But with others, even those sensitive to ecological issues, there is a lot of resistance. In Switzerland, maintaining a certain standard of living remains very important, and it’s very difficult for people to let go of that. So I wonder: is it my approach that’s blocking it? Or is it the context of the one-to-one meeting?
I also work on mandates, sometimes with companies or institutions. And there, I feel that people have to leave satisfied. It’s not easy to push questioning too far. On the other hand, in workshops or conferences, it’s much easier for me.
Sabrina: For me, the most difficult thing is the lack of funding and the lack of political ideas. For example, in France, with the law on “ecological planning,” we should have gone all out to support farmers in the transition. But that’s not the case. I sometimes go and help on farms that practise syntropic agriculture. It’s very hard to make ends meet, to find enough people to work. Everything still rests on the goodwill of a few people. It’s not sustainable.
And if we take the transition seriously, we should also stop pushing people towards long university studies. We should revalue concrete, manual skills. But in Switzerland, that’s not the direction being taken at all. We still value more diplomas, more thinking… whereas sometimes, you just have to act.
We spend an incredible amount of time thinking about our individual gestures—how to buy more organic…—when if we went to “shake the coconut tree,” we could move things forward. We get lost in reflection when we should move to action.
Aline: Yes, and to add: in the field of guidance, we are used to being backed by public policies, by training systems, by a labour market.
But we are coming with a discourse that is out of sync. And as long as this discourse is not institutionally supported, we remain marginal. Take an example: in Lausanne, there’s a large multinational. It offers lots of jobs. Telling people not to apply there is complicated. We could offer them manual activities, but they might not earn their living as well as before. And for many, that’s not conceivable. There is still a strong attachment to certain comfort standards: holidays, the car…
All that belongs to the realm of the collective imagination. And we can’t deconstruct everything in the space of a simple guidance assessment, even if we can plant seeds.
Green Guidance: What would you advise a guidance professional who wants to “green” their practice, without necessarily working with an already sensitised audience? Where should they start?
Aline: I think that everything we’ve developed in Slow ta carrière can be completely adapted to individual work. We work both on what the person wants to do and on what they want to contribute to the world. So we can quite simply, in classic questioning, introduce a question like: “What do I want to contribute to? To which common goods?”
Just that already brings a new way of doing things. A small shift away from the “I” can change everything. And people go along with it. For example, I often use an exercise around meaning at work with language cards. One of the questions is: “What would I like my work to bring to others, to the world?” Nobody ever says to me: “That’s a strange question.” It’s integrated among others, so it works very well.
“Feeling useful also improves well-being. Even one small question that shifts the focus from ‘What do I want for myself?’ to ‘What do I want to bring to the world?’ can change everything.”
I also use the exercise “My roles for tomorrow,” which questions commitments: why do I want to get involved? Again, I offer it to everyone. It works, because we can link it to a search for well-being: “Feeling useful also means feeling good.” So we can start there. And it’s perhaps simpler than tackling the whole approach straight away, which requires deeper personal work.
I know that some professionals don’t feel legitimate because they themselves haven’t completely “changed their life” yet. But that doesn’t matter. The important thing is to try, to dare, to go step by step. Even one small different question is already better than doing nothing. It’s really the logic of small steps.
Sabrina: Yes, that’s a good route: to ask what problem I’d like to solve, for which common good I’d like to act. And studies show that this is what gives life the most meaning: taking part in something bigger than oneself.
The problem is that in psychology we are caught in our own limitations: we’ve reduced fulfilment to very individualistic objectives – learning a language, traveling a lot, having a successful career… – and we’ve forgotten this dimension of going beyond oneself, in the sense of transcending one’s own interest. Believing in something bigger, acting for the collective, that also nourishes our deeper desires.
And I think that in the great acceleration, we’ve lost that. Between the days of Bateson and today, we’ve given up a part of the substance of life, quite simply.
So I would say: bring collective meaning back into our practices, and above all, come together. Create a network, meet peers, find inspiration. And above all, don’t wait to be perfect. We’re not. Just living in a Western country already means taking part in inequalities. But the fact of being “on the way,” of questioning yourself, that changes everything.
I couldn’t see myself arriving at a workshop in a big luxury car to tell young people: “Listen, there are ecological problems.” You need a certain coherence, but not perfection. You have to dare to get moving, with honesty.
Green Guidance: Is there anything else you’d like to add, that hasn’t been covered?
Sabrina: I was thinking… maybe we could imagine a political branch within the green guidance community? To write to professional associations asking them to stop holding conferences that require air travel, or to call out national career guidance websites that usually do not take this dimension into account, or in France, to react to absurd things like on the ONISEP website about the SDGs where you find “banker” as a profession that contributes to social responsibility. There you go, a bit of activism, right? (laughs)