Career Counseling as a National Workforce Priority

Introduction

For many years, career counselors have worked with their clients to help them chart a path to success, determine the steps they will need to take to get there, and then begin taking those steps. While being a career counselor is a fulfilling profession, many people do not know what a career counselor is or what one does (Hansen, 2003).

"Since the early 20th century, career counseling has been the object of public policy and legislation. As such, the important contributions of career counseling to labor market processes have reinforced the role of career counseling and related career interventions as sociopolitical instruments vital to the facilitation of national goals" (Herr, 2003).

Career counselors work with clients to individually assist them in attaining their career goals. A naturally occurring byproduct of their efforts includes the prevention and reduction of long-term unemployment, the matching of workers with employers, and the development of a national workforce.

Career Counselor Components

Before one can understand the way that career counselors help build self-esteem and confidence in their clients, one should have a basic understanding of what a career counselor does each day.

In short, a career counselor is paid to help individuals enter or re-enter the job market. In addition, they serve as facilitators between employers and potential employees, and they act as organizational counselors who help their clients attain the positions they are seeking (Hansen, 2003).

Being a career counselor entails much more than teaching a client how to interview properly. It can also mean helping the client determine what type of education he or she needs to achieve a career goal, helping the client assemble a resume that showcases his or her experiences, and working to help the client develop confidence in his or her abilities and marketability in the workforce.

"In policy and legislation, directly and indirectly, career counseling has been assigned major responsibilities to carry out national purposes with different populations and in manifold settings" (Hansen, 2003). However, it should be noted that relatively little legislation during the past 100 years has identified career counseling as a stand-alone process or as the sole focus of legislation (Herr, 1996, as cited in Hansen, 2003). Rather, career counseling has typically been seen as an important process that works in conjunction with multidimensional programs of intervention — such as financial aid, apprenticeship, job training, academic programs, and physical rehabilitation — to address a larger set of issues reflected in specific legislation, including the School-to-Work Opportunities Act, the Workforce Investment Act, the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education and Applied Technology Act, the Social Security Act, and the North American Free Trade Act/Trade Adjustment Assistance (Hansen, 2003).

For American society, career counseling is an integral part of the sociopolitical instruments that facilitate national goals.

Apathy Toward Career Counseling

For the most part, recent history has seen a growing apathy among graduate students interested in professional counseling when it comes to viewing career counseling as a viable career path (Savickas, 1997). It is noteworthy that there is a lack of confidence in a career choice that is itself designed to instill confidence in others' career choices.

Overall, students at the master's and doctoral levels who are interested in becoming professional counselors tend to move toward the mental health fields. One reason this occurs is that mental health counseling has long held the reputation of being more lucrative — though many graduates in that field are having difficulty locating employment. A second reason career counseling is not often embraced is that it is not considered vital to life success, and those who enter a counseling career typically want to change lives in more direct ways.

What students should begin to understand is that career counselors have a significant impact not only on the clients they serve but also on the entire national picture, as they work to provide solid matches between employers and employees.

"A second internal strength of career counseling is its research base" (Hansen, 2003). Career counseling and related career interventions have been the focus of a growing scientific knowledge base providing evidence that a wide range of career interventions — including individual and group career counseling, career guidance, career education, computer-assisted career guidance programs, and self-directed assessments — have a positive effect on many categories of career issues (Hansen, 2003). These include career awareness and exploration, career planning skills, addressing client information deficits, improved school involvement and performance, personal and interpersonal work skills, help identifying and selecting available options, reducing unemployment and work-adjustment problems, and mastering career transitions (Hansen, 2003). This body of research is available to practitioners, researchers, and theorists and provides factual data for use in interactions with policymakers and in shaping legislative perspectives (Hansen, 2003).

Conclusion

The career counselor of today must also work with a much more culturally diverse population than in the past. Counselors work with people who face language barriers, hold unrecognized international certifications, and encounter other challenges that can affect their confidence levels. It is the role of the career counselor to work with these diverse populations and guide them toward success by building their confidence in their own abilities.

Career counseling is a profession in which counselors have a measurable impact on the national workforce and its direction, though many professional counseling students in college overlook it as a potential career. As the world continues to diversify and globalize, the impact that career counselors have on society will only continue to expand.