CAREERS COUNSELLING BPS202

Train to be a Career or Employment Advisor

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

Starting or changing a career can be quite a challenge. Without help, a person can easily become discouraged or overwhelmed. If you want to help others (or yourself) make sound career decisions and set realistic career goals, this course will set you on that path.

Effective counselling requires a certain predictive ability that is based on the situation as it really is, which is often not the situation as the client perceives it, or as the client or counsellor would like it to be. One aspect of informed prediction will be, of course, a sound knowledge of the current job market and opportunities, which is an essential part of the Careers Counsellor’s professional knowledge. Another aspect of informed prediction will be a realistic assessment of the client’s current and likely future state, which includes attitude, knowledge, skills, experience, interpersonal skills etc.

 

Become a Career or Employment Advisor

  • Learn about the scope and nature of careers
  • Learn techniques for helping people of any age with making decisions about their careers
  • Help people find work, and build a career
  • Start an employment service based business; or find a job as a careers advisor

 

Careers counselling can be divided into three main areas:

  • vocational or career guidance
  • vocational or career planning
  • job seeking and application

Careers/Vocational guidance refers to the process of helping the client identify the kind of work or field that most suits them. The basic question is "What vocation is this person most suited to?" The answers for this depend upon:

  • What they enjoy doing
  • What they are able to do
  • What they want to contribute and to whom (perhaps to disabled, children)
  • What they can and are willing to learn
  • How much time and effort they are willing or able to commit to developing their vocation
  • The current job-market and existing or anticipated need for their services.

While the client has come to you as an expert, your main role is to empower the client to make their own decisions. You will, of course, discuss decisions the client and help them understand the likely consequences of their decisions, but in the end, your job is to support their decision making and their decisions. Make sure that you are helping the client develop his or her goals, not what you think their goals should be.

COURSE STRUCTURE

The course is divided into ten lessons as follows:

  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
    • 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

 

Duration: 100 hours

 

Aims

  • Identify people and organisations which offer career advice or support and the services they offer.
  • Distinguish successful from unsuccessful careers, and to prepare for anticipated changes in the workplace.
  • Guide others in the establishment or development of a career.
  • Plan and execute an effective Counselling Session
  • Understand and develop strategies for dealing with the needs of inexperienced young people.
  • Identify and meet needs of inexperienced adults or those facing career change.
  • Understand how and where to find employment in the job market.
  • Appreciate the need to nurture and grow a career and plan for change.


What is Involved in Careers Counselling?

Careers Counselling involves more than just finding work for people.  Among other things, Careers Counselling may involve helping people:

  • identify the best job for their skills and interests
  • find any job to meet their personal and financial needs
  • find a better or more appropriate job for their situation
  • achieve job satisfaction through appropriate choices
  • plan and cope with career changes
  • better adapt to the workplace
  • improve their potential for advancement in the workplace
  • identify new career possibilities when circumstances change.

To be able to assist a client in each or any of these processes, a Careers Counsellor must be aware of :

  • the diverse nature of employment opportunities
  • the requirements for success in different types of jobs
  • reasons that people hire and fire employees
  • workplace conditions including contract law, industrial relations systems, health and safety issues, ethics - useful contacts among employers, government departments, funding bodies, professional associations, industry experts, etc
  • factors that hinder or promote a person's job-seeking effectiveness
  • trends in the local job market.

A good Careers Counsellor must be impartial and objective.

 

Jobs Are Rarely What the Seem?

The old saying “The grass is greener on the other side of the fence” applies very much to the workplace!
Looking at any job from the outside is more often than not, very different to actually experiencing the job. Most jobs involve a multitude of tasks; some can be easy and others difficult, some pleasant and others unpleasant. It’s almost always a mixed bag. When you consider a career, it is natural to pay extra attention to the positive aspects of a job, and overlook negatives, particularly if it is dealing with something you are passionate about. If someone offers you work that you are disinclined towards, you are likely to exaggerate the negative and overlook the positive. In reality though, every job will have positive and negative features; and it is important to see both in an impartial and balanced way.

The world keeps changing. You need to keep changing direction, adding to your skills, build your awareness, networking, knowledge, experience etc.
Learning does not stop when you get a job. Life should always be an ongoing process of change and development, and even more so today than ever before.
You may get the job you wished for, but you will need to continue to develop your abilities if you wish to maintain and progress your career. For example, as a farmer, you may need to keep updating on changes in how produce is grown, harvested and marketed. If you are unaware of new technologies, techniques and trends; you can quickly find that your position in industry becomes out dated and irrelevant.
It is important to continue to update your knowledge and skills to develop and maintain your relevance in the workplace.


So how does someone continue to improve skills and knowledge?

There are many options, and a good careers counselor needs to be able to help their clients understand those options.

 

ARE YOU THINKING "YES, I WANT THIS!"?

Get started today and make a difference.

Simply click on the ENROL NOW icon at the top of this page