Career guidance has been criticised for focusing on individual agency, complying with discourses that "responsibilise" individuals to manage their careers. A social justice approach argues for a more nuanced recognition of the interplay of structure and agency, which raises questions about how to do this in practice? In this paper we argue for the value of interpretive phenomenology which challenges what is taken-for-granted, illuminates the nature of shared experience and enables a deeper understanding of individuals within their environment. Through interviews with higher education students and recent graduates, we illustrate how experiences of unpaid work are intricately interwoven with biography, relationships, location and resources over time. We illustrate how a . pragmatic phenomenological approach offers valuable theoretical tools for socially just guidance practice and research.