The Power of Narrative: Using a Cycle of Storying and Re‐Storying to Understand Careers

ABSTRACT This paper makes the case for narrative as a powerful qualitative method for understanding careers in their full temporal, contextual and emotional complexity. By foregrounding individual voices over time, life stories reveal how people construct and navigate their careers and lives across varied personal and professional landscapes. We begin by exploring the value of centering individual narratives in career research, especially as traditional linear career paths become less common. Life stories are then situated within broader narrative traditions to clarify their unique contributions. Drawing on a study of 21 employed older women undertaking self‐ initiated expatriation, we offer a practical, five‐step narrative framework for collecting and analysing life and career stories, ensuring a cycle of narrative analysis. This provides methodological guidance for HR and careers scholars seeking to work with deep, narrative data in the careers space. We argue that life stories illuminate the dynamic interplay between self, work and context, offering a richer, temporal and more human‐centred lens for understanding contemporary careers and for career development.