Evaluate Career Counseling Employment Services

Knowing how to evaluate career counseling employment services will help to ensure you are getting excellent support and guidance from an experienced professional.

When you search online for career management advice, you'll find everything from tips from people who've read a couple of resume guides and now feel qualified to give career advice, through to quality support from professionals who've studied career counseling theory and practice and have helped hundreds of clients.

I take career counseling seriously. In my opinion, career and employment counseling is a professional activity. It requires specific training, experience and continual professional development. I do encourage you to review my own professional career counseling background.

To help you better evaluate career counseling employment services, if you are thinking about seeking out that support, here's what the National Career Development Association says a good career counselor needs to know:

Career Development Theory
Good career counselors know how careers develop over a life span. They have an understanding of the ways in which race, gender, social class and physical and mental abilities impact career development and can apply that knowledge to support you in making your own career decisions.

Counseling Skills
Career development professionals can develop productive and professional relationships with clients. They can develop a thorough understanding of each individual client's personal strengths and challenges related to their career development. They are skilled at helping clients to establish personal goals and assisting clients to develop the skills and find the resources to meet those goals.

Assessment Skills
Career counselors have been trained to assess the aptitudes, skills, achievements, interests and work related values of their clients. They use valid tools, research and professional knowledge to assess work environments for a variety of jobs and understand how those jobs match with clients' needs.

Information and Resources
To make a well thought out career decision you typically need access to a lot of information. Career counselors know where to find reliable information on education and training, labor market trends, and specific resources to assist you with career planning research.

Program Development and Management
Trained career development practitioners are able to design programs to meet the specific career development needs of a diverse range of clients. They consider and address the needs of clients from a variety of backgrounds when they develop programs and resources. They also know their own limitations and recommend other services when clients have needs that are outside of their own professional expertise.

Ethical and Legal Issues
Professional career counselors understand and adhere to ethical standards that are relevant to career counseling.

Generalists, like life coaches, will not typically have all of the skills and knowledge that you'll find in a trained, experienced career counselor. They might do a great job of motivating you, but, because they're generalists, they can have limited expertise in the field of career development.

Moreover, someone who has read a couple of resume books and then decides to provide online career advice, in my opinion, doesn't know what they don't know about supporting you in your career management and career choices. That might sound harsh, but I've seen too many clients waste valuable time and plenty of money on questionable career advice that got them no closer to the job they wanted.

Don't be shy about asking questions, a good career counselor will welcome them. Do your research and evaluate career counseling employment services before you use them. Your career decisions impact all areas of your life, and you deserve to make those decisions with the support of a highly competent, experienced professional.