Career Counseling and career coaching are similar in nature to traditional counseling (Kim, Li, Lian, 2002). However, the focus is generally on issues such as career exploration, career change, personal career development and other career related issues (Swanson, 1995). Typically when people come for career counseling they know exactly what they want to get out of the process, but are unsure about how it will work (Galassi, Crace, Martin, James, and Wallace, 1992).
In the UK Career Counseling would more usually be called Careers Advice or Guidance.
Career counselors work with people from all walks of life such as adolescents looking to explore career options or with experienced professionals looking for a career change. Career counselors typically have a background in psychology, vocational psychology, or industrial/organizational psychology (Swanson & Parcover, 1998).
The approach of career counseling varies by practitioner, but generally they include the completion of one or more assessments (Swanson & Parcover, 1998). These assessments typically include: interest inventories, cognitive ability tests, and personality assessments.
Challenges of career counseling/guidance
One of the major challenges associated with career counseling is encouraging participants to engage with it. For example in the UK 70% of under 14s say they have had no careers advice while 45% over 14s have had no or very poor/limited advice.
Another issue is the spread of careers advice opportunities. For example, 40% of doctors in training found it difficult to get appropriate careers advice.
In a related issue some client groups tend to reject the interventions made by professional career counselors prefering to rely on the advice of peers or superiors within their own profession. Jackson et al found that 44% of doctors in training felt that senior members of their own profession were best placed to give careers advice. Furthermore it is recognised that the giving of career advice is something that is widely spread through a range of formal and informal roles. In addition to career counselors it is also common for teachers, managers, trainers and HR specialists to give formal support in career choices. Similarly it is also common for people to seek informal support from friends and family around their career choices and to bypass career professionals altogether. Today increasingly people rely on career web portals to seek advice on resume writing and handling interviews; as also to research on various professions and companies.
A history of career counseling/guidance
Frank Parson's Choosing a Vocation (1909) was perhaps the first major work which is concerned with careers guidance.
External links
- National Career Development Association
References
- ^ Cabinet Office, We want the top jobs and need better careers advice’ - Young people tell Alan Milburn's review, http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/newsroom/news_releases/2009/090610_survey.aspx
- ^ Jackson et al, Informing choices: the need for career advice in medical training, http://www.crac.org.uk/crac_new/pdfs/informingchoices_medicaltrainig_report.pdf
- ^ Jackson et al, Informing choices: the need for career advice in medical training, http://www.crac.org.uk/crac_new/pdfs/informingchoices_medicaltrainig_report.pdf
- Swanson, J.L. and Parcover, J.A. (1998). Annual Review: Practise and research in career counseling and development — 1997. The Career Development Quarterly. 47, 2, 98-135.
- Galassi, J.P., Crace, R.K., Martin, G.A., James, R.M. & Wallace, R.L. (1992). Client preferences and anticipations in career counseling: A preliminary investigation. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 39, 46-55.
- Swanson, J.L. (1995). The process and outcome of career counseling. In W.B. Walsh & S.H. Osipow (Eds.), Handbook of vocational psychology: Theory, research and practice (pp. 295–329). Mahwah, NJ:
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