Careers Counselling involves many things. As well as helping people find their dream career, your work as a careers counsellor may involve helping people:

• Help people connect with their passions
• Identify the best job for their skills and interests
• Transition into a new career
• Develop job searching and Interview skills
• Achieve job satisfaction in their current position
• Plan and cope with career changes
• Cope with their workplace
• Improve their potential for advancement
• Identify new career possibilities 

Student Comment -Charles - student in Careers Counselling
I have really improved my knowledge in this field. It has also given me the confidence to start my own small business in private Careers Counselling.

Duration:  100 hours, self paced study

Course Structure

There are 10 lessons in this course:

1. Introduction
   • Scope and Nature of Careers Counselling
2. Nature of Careers
   • What is a career, what makes it successful
3. Careers Advice Resources
   • Brochures, Publications, Web Sites
4. Services
   • Where can people get help (Social Services, Work Experience, Education)
5. Developing Counselling Skills
6. Conducting a Counselling Session
7. Counselling Students and School Leavers
8. Counselling Adults (inexperienced or facing career change)
9. Job Prospecting
   • How to find work, resumes, etc

A good Careers Counsellor must be impartial and objective.

Learn more about the employment industry and about ways to help others (or yourself) develop and pursue a career path that is both achievable and appropriate.

Career Counselling is also a valuable addition to your teaching, counselling, management, life-coaching, or community services qualification. It can improve parents' ability to help their children choose suitable career paths, or student's ability to plan their own career or career change.

Course Aims

• Identify people and organisations that offer career advice or support and the services they offer.
• Distinguish successful from unsuccessful careers, and prepare for anticipated changes in the workplace.
• Develop skills that will enhance your ability to guide others in the establishment or development of a career.
• Plan and execute an effective counselling session
• Explain strategies for dealing with the needs of inexperienced young people.
• Identify and meet the needs of inexperienced adults or those facing career change.
• Explain how and where to find employment in the job market.
• Describe the need to nurture and grow a career and plan for change.

Scope of each Lesson

1. Introduction –Scope & Nature of the Industry

• Definitions: career, careers counselling, counselling
• Broad employment options
• Services offered in the employment industry
• Assumptions about career counselling practices
• Cross cultural careers counselling

2. Nature of Careers –What is a career, what makes it successful?

• Introduction
• Elements of career building and job seeking
• Factors contributing to career success
• Realistic expectations
• Range of options
• Persistence
• Case study

3. Careers Advice Resources –Brochures, Publications, Web Sites

• Employer considerations: qualifications, experience, personality, age, adaptability, productivity, etc
• Case study

4. Career Services –Where can people get help (Social Services, Work Experience, Education)

• Career counselling services
• Careers and vocational guidance
• Vocational planning
• Setting goals
• Job seeking support
• Job seeking strategies
• Other services

5. Developing Counselling Skills

• Key areas for career counselling
• Helping clients focus on reality
• Helping clients identify opportunities
• Helping clients consider all elements
• Overcoming resistance from clients
• Listening skills
• Questioning skills
• Problem solving skills
• Essential reality checks
• Improving clients predictive ability

6. Conducting a Counselling Session

• Why people come to a career counsellor
• Strategies to develop trust
• A career counselling session
• Individuals who know the job they want
• Psychometric testing for individuals still choosing a career
• Types of psychological tests that may be used
• Referring people elsewhere

7. Counselling Students and School Leavers (with little work experience)

• Understanding youth
• Career counselling for adolescents
• Assisting indecisive teenagers
• Career counselling for students
• Giving advice on study
• Choosing a course
• Workshops for students
• Workshops for university students
• Resources for counselling students

8. Counselling Adults (inexperienced or facing career change)

• Identifying adult needs The training program
• Advice and support during job hunting
• Course of action
• Career changing
• Easiest paths to career change
• Challenging path to career change
• Starting a business
• Case study
• Writing a business plan

9. Job Prospecting – How to find work…resumes, etc

• Ways of finding work
• Supporting clients decisions
• Prospecting for work
• Tips on getting a job
• Writing resumes (CV's)
• Preparing for a job interview

10. Nurturing and growing a career once it has started

• Getting a job is only the first step in a career
• Self management for business people
• Marketing and pricing
• Case study
• Advising clients about career advancement

ELEMENTS OF CAREER BUILDING AND JOB SEEKING

The most common job-seeking system is to apply for vacant and/or advertised jobs. Because thousands of other people are using exactly the same system, and are applying for the same advertised jobs, the chances of success may be quite low, depending on the current job market. Even when people find jobs this way, those jobs can offer little promise for the future, and people can end up in jobs that are wrong for them. More likely, job-seekers will become frustrated and disillusioned after many rejections.

The reality of the labour market is that many job seekers are competing for too few desirable positions, which means that even the most determined job seeker might not gain a desirable position and may end up in a job well below his or her capacities, and in which he or she has little interest other than as a source of income.

A more thoughtful and planned approach to job seeking is to plan to establish and build a career. Rather than applying for every job, the career builder focuses his or her attention and energies on field of work, such as horticulture, or animal care, or sales. Focusing on one area will encourage individuals to work on strengthening their skills and knowledge in that area to develop a sound understanding of what is required and what is happening in that area. Even when a person is looking for and will accept any job to meet their financial needs, having a career plan will increase their awareness of, and responsiveness to any opportunities that will support their long-term goals. In formulating that career plan, both client and careers counsellor should ask three questions:

• What (what do I have to offer)?
• Where (where do I want to end up)?
• How (how do I get there)?

Career planning begins with deciding exactly what a person has to work with. This includes existing abilities, special skills, transferable skills (that can be applied in different areas), talents, interests, experience and desire to learn. These are the basic blocks of a career, and will allow a person to identify a field of work in which they can thrive and achieve satisfaction. The more the person knows what they want to do, the more energy and enthusiasm they will bring to their job-seeking and career building in that field.

The next step is to find where that person can best use their abilities, develop their interests, and find stimulation and satisfaction. This involves identifying a field of work that calls for or will develop those skills and interests, a location or locations, (country, town, urban or rural etc), and the kind of working environment that person wants. At this stage, the client should be undertaking considerable research into possible careers, and the life coach should be prepared to support the client’s investigations in several ways, such as discussing possible sources of information, planning information-gathering interviews with employers or practitioners in that field, helping clients develop their interview and telephone skills, and helping them analyse the information to reach some conclusions.

During this stage, the individual will accumulate knowledge about career prospects in the chosen field and will develop an understanding of that is and is not realistically possible. The research and analysis of the information in collaboration with the life coach should help the client separate wishful thinking from possibility to formulate clear, realistic and precise goals. With those goals in mind, the individual is able to make better short term choices, such as finding a job right now, or entering a course of study, while working towards larger career objectives.

The third step in career planning is the determine how to get a job in the field that you have chosen. This is where a life coach must be creative in helping clients devise strategies for finding or creating desirable jobs. This is also the stage at which the client’s research into can be turned into action. For instance, the client who has identified key organisations in that field and even key personnel can focus on obtaining an interview, can use the contacts made previously to get an appointment, and can use his/her knowledge of an organisation’s goals and vision to promote him or herself to that employer. Another aspect of this stage could be undertaking study to gain the requirements for work in that field (having previously learned, of course, exactly what course of study is desired by the employer).

To illustrate how these three steps might work, consider the case of a young woman interested in working with animals because she likes and has a ‘way’ with them. At the first stage, she might determine that she doesn’t like study and is thorough disgusted at the idea of watching a surgery. She does enjoy petting animals and being around them; she likes making things pretty; and she is a careful, attentive person with a fairly easy-going personality. So she eventually determines that she wants to work in the area of pet grooming. Checking around, she learns that most pet groomers are self-employed in either small salons or with mobile services. This suits her because she likes working in a small, friendly workplace, and she can work in any city, which she prefers. She decides to take a pet grooming course while looking for any job with pets, even at a pet shop, with the long-term goal of setting up her own pet grooming business. She approaches the pet shops, grooming places and vets that she talked to during her earlier research, telling them she is available for any kind of work as she completes her course, and discussing with them how they might use her pet grooming service, thus building and reinforcing her professional network.