A typology of labour market intermediaries securing nonstandard career paths

In a context where the classical vision of organizational careers is eroded, this paper explores how Labour Market Intermediaries (LMIs) can secure nonstandard career paths. To characterize LMIs’ emerging roles, we propose a multidimensional grid made up of 6 criteria likely to answer the following questions: 1) where do LMIs come from? 2) who is responsible for the matchmaking process? 3) when do LMIs secure career paths? 4) how do they support professional transitions? 5) what kind of information do they produce and diffuse on the labour market? 6) why do they intervene on the labour market? We validate this analytical framework through its application to five case studies selected to compare the roles LMIs can play in securing careers paths. Beyond the creation of an original grid, results outline two ideal-typical ways of securing transitions. On the one hand, some LMIs offer security by reconstructing internal labour markets and consider workers as ‘quasi-employees’. On the other hand, other LMIs suggest more disruptive solutions in which workers are supported in their job transitions ‘as if’ they were ‘quasi-self-employed’, i.e.: becoming fully responsible for their career. In the conclusion, we discuss societal challenges surrounding these two ideal-typical situations.