Career Counsellors For Positive Change
Posted on 4:46pm, 18th August 2010 • 8 Comments
Bel Mooney’s book Small dogs can save your life started me thinking about career counsellors’ place in the wider scheme of things. Less cute than fluffy white puppies, career counsellors are at least as good at changing lives! They just do it differently….
Career counsellors are their clients’ allies, focus-finders and energisers, their route-maps and tool-kit. While career counsellors aren’t as cuddly as Bel’s Bonnie, the emotional support they provide in hard times is often as necessary. Career counsellors help people make good choices of career and overcome the job catastrophes (redundancy, work stress, etc) most of us experience some time in our working lives.
Career counsellors exist because working life’s got so complicated nowadays. Contrast my grandad’s educational choices, job hunt and work experience with yours.
Leaving school at 14, grandad didn’t need a career counsellor to advise about future education and career choices – the only choices he had were between the different dead end jobs within walking distance. He turned up in person and asked for any job he wanted (no need for career counsellor input on CV and interview techniques!). Workplace relationships didn’t provide scope for a career counsellor either – the boss hired and fired at will (though grandad could walk into another job just as easily). For grandad, work was low risk, low reward all along the line …
Fast-forward to 2010.
You’ve umpteen education and career choices so you want a career counsellor’s advice to help you decide which offer the best prospects. The costs of many wrong decisions now are much, much higher than in grandad’s day (resign yourself to years of retraining if you want to switch professional careers, for example).
Job search is now an art form. When you’re competing against a hundred applicants for the job you want, a career counsellor’s professional expertise can make all the difference to how you present yourself and whether the employer picks you.
It can now cost employers a huge amount of money and aggro when workplace relationships sour. If you and your boss start hating each other, your employer may see funding a career counsellor to restore calm as the better, cheaper alternative to fighting an employment tribunal case.
Every society generates its own specialist jobs (eg Search Engine Optimisation posts only became necessary as the world wide web developed). The new role of career counsellor is a by-product of the chaos and sheer complexity of today’s fast-changing, sometimes brutal world of work.
I agree partly that career counsellors are important but the rest is up to the individual, as the axiom goes “you can take a horse to water but you can’t force it to drink”. Finally , I belong to the school of thought of having a positive mindset, set our goals/dreams and work towards achieving them.
Ernest • 27th August, 2010 at 5:50 pm
Career counsellors are great if you can afford one.
Paddywhack • 6th September, 2010 at 4:48 pm
Would rather have a fluffy white puppy
Wavywatt • 9th September, 2010 at 4:06 pm
The workplace is HELL for many people now, even if they’re lucky enough to hang on to their jobs. No wonder people need career counsellors. They’re a healthier option than hitting the booze!
AnneS • 17th December, 2010 at 11:19 am
Career counsellors help you see yourself more objectively so you know what jobs to try for.
Because I needed a job to pay the bills fast, I was applying for every vacancy I saw though most of them I wouldn’t normally have considered and couldn’t have shown a convincing amount of enthusiasm for.
It took a good career counsellor to show me how to track down the jobs I did want to do and my career history said I could do well. There aren’t lots of jobs about ANYWHERE but now I know more about how to look for jobs, there are at least a number of jobs I can apply for. I write better and more focused job applications so I don’t get as many rejection letters. When I get to interview, I don’t sound like a wally any more – I want the job and I’d be good at doing it.
Dime • 11th September, 2011 at 10:39 am
“Job search is now an art form”. You bet your life it is. Small wonder with nearly 3M out of work. You know your CV’s got to out-perform those of dozens or hundreds of good candidates.
It’d be SO NICE if the powers that be recognised all this. I’m fed up of being chivvied by JobCentrePlus about not applying for enough vacancies, a really good application takes time to do and a lot of thinking and research and there’s no benefit to anyone in me sending out rubbish.
That.Man.Again • 9th November, 2011 at 1:12 pm
If career counsellors do nothing more than help you stay motivated, they’ll have earnt their fee. Looking for a job in 2011 is the most god-awful experience I’ve had to date.
Harry123 • 22nd November, 2011 at 12:02 pm
All I want for Christmas is a good job PLEASE.
On_The_Toon • 21st December, 2011 at 11:50 am