Career Genogram
Grandfather was an electrician. Father ran a small contracting crew. Both uncles are in the trades. The daughter went to college, got the office job everyone said they wanted for her — and three years in, can't say out loud that she wants to leave. Draw that family and the reason sits right there on the page: a clean line of men who built things with their hands, and one person who was never given a picture of what "making it" could look like outside of that.
A career genogram — occupations across three generations, the repeating pattern in teal.
That is what a career genogram does. It is a three-generation family map, the same notation you already know, but the nodes carry jobs, schooling, and the unwritten rules a family keeps about work — who is allowed to do what, which careers earn approval at the dinner table, which ones get the polite silence. Career counselors and counselor-ed programs use it to help a client see where their beliefs about work, money, and success actually came from, instead of treating those beliefs as plain facts about themselves.
What goes on each person
A clinical genogram tracks closeness, conflict, and cutoff. A career genogram keeps the structure and changes what you write inside the squares and circles. For each person you can reach, note:
- Their occupation — and whether it was chosen, fallen into, or handed down.
- Education: how far they got, and whether more was expected or out of reach.
- The story the family tells about that job — the one they brag about, the one nobody mentions.
- Money and class movement: who moved up, who stayed, who was the "first to" do something.
How to build one
- Lay out the standard three generations — you, your parents and their siblings, your grandparents.
- Write each person's occupation and education beside their symbol.
- Mark who pushed a path and who shut one down, and add the lines they said out loud ("teaching is steady," "art doesn't pay the bills").
- Step back and read it as a pattern: repeated fields, the family business, jobs that skip the women or skip the men, the careers no one in three generations ever tried.
Reading what it shows
The map is not the point — the conversation it starts is. Once a client can see that "a real job" in their family has always meant a trade, or a union card, or a title their immigrant grandparents could name with pride, the pressure they feel stops being a character flaw and becomes inherited. That is the moment to ask the question the genogram is built for: which of these messages do you actually want to keep. From there a path gets chosen on purpose, not by default — and that is the work career counseling is trying to reach.
Build a career genogram — free
Add people, draw relationships, and export a clean PDF or PNG. No download, works on any device.
Open the genogram makerFrequently asked questions
- What is a career genogram?
- A career genogram is a family map focused on work: it records the occupations, education, and career paths of family members across generations to reveal the influences, expectations, and patterns that have shaped your own career thinking.
- How do you make a career genogram?
- Build a standard three-generation genogram, then label each person with their occupation and education instead of (or alongside) emotional ties. Add who pushed or discouraged a path and the lines they said out loud. Then read it for patterns — recurring fields, the family business, careers no one ever tried.
- What is a career genogram used for?
- Career counselors use it to help clients (and students use it in coursework) to surface family messages about work and success, and to understand where their own career assumptions came from.