How do you balance career counseling expectations?

Everything in that first paragraph comes down to one word, communication. You have to be open and honest and encourage the same from your clients. Honest and open communication is what inspires trust and that is what helps to prevent all of the evils like the aforementioned misunderstandings, conflicts, and disappointments.

It’s so important to spend time contracting with your client so they know about confidentiality, understand what they’ll be accountable for and understand your role as coach. In the contracting session it’s good to agree session lengths, frequency and location to everyone is clear up front. Other things to agree is what the client wants to get out of the sessions and what success looks like.

In the introductory session with the client, we have to introduce ourselves as a Career Counseling expert and have to give clarity on do's and don'ts accordingly. Primary roles include assist clients in exploring and managing their careers. We have to provide support, guidance, and resources to help clients to set goals, make informed decisions, and career oriented challenges.We help the client to know and understand themself better in order to make educational and career decisions. We have to consider factors that influence clients career development, including their abilities, interests, values, and circumstances. The key responsibilities include conducting career assessment by action planning and goal setting strategies to our clients.

In my current role, the career counselor has to take a passenger seat, as I am primarily a program manager. When I do get the chance to work with a client one on one who has questions, who has some self doubt, or feels lost - My first sentence is 'how can I help'. I let them know I am here to be honest with them, that I am NOT contracted by them and that I am available for them. I do not report to anyone in their command and that they are free to say whatever they want. HOWEVER, they should also know I won't say something I don't believe, I won't sugar coat it.

A client service agreement is what I use to set clear expectations. It Mine explains that confidentiality is at the heart of my practice, whether I am working with a private client or being paid through their employer. This sets the tone for the relationship and for mutual trust to develop. It also explains that I am guided by the ethical guidelines of my professional associations in terms of limits and boundaries of services. This has worked well for me. In terms of the relationship, it explains that my role is to support and empower them; to listen carefully to what is said and what's not said, and offer honest feed back. I will hold them accountable to achieving their goals and will challenge them to go beyond their comfort zone.

Assessments are a great first step, but I often remind clients that none of these assessments are etched in stone. They should always interpret them in context, and not viewed as fixed as in 'fixed mindset'. One of my clients completed the DISC, and saw one negative statement in the report. He called to say, "This assessment made me out to be an a**hole." Nothing was further from the truth. During the debrief, we reviewed the report and i asked him to highlight the statements that were true. We also discussed the one he was concerned about. His perspective changed. Two days after our debrief, he had an interview and was asked to take the same DISC. He called to say, he was not apprehensive as he knew what to expect. Context matters!

I have clients who come to me from different phases of life, but most often work with mid-career professionals who want to change fields. In those cases, I ask A LOT of open-ended questions to ascertain where their heads are and what they envision for the future. If they are undecided, I'll have them do some more formal assessments. If they have an idea, I'll help guide them down an exploratory path to see if the track they are on is where they want to be.

As a career coach, both the coach and the client must agree on the plan's goals and expectations, amicably. Coaches should ensure that the client actually has these expectations and is not just going along with what was recommended. I've had situations where I wanted successful outcomes which required more than the client was willing to invest. We must ensure the client understands the work required to reach specific goals. I find that amicable agreements result in the most successful results.

When I work with clients, we set very clear goals together in order to manage expectations, workload, and timeline. Many clients come to me with no or subpar documents that need to be updated before they can engage in a successful strategic job search. We work on that piece together, which can take a number of sessions, and then work on a plan moving forward.

This guidance must include being completely honest with them. Encouraging, yes. Bolstering them, yes. But never ever be dishonest with them. I work with members of the military community and some do think they will make exorbitant amounts of money when they get out and that everyone is lining up to hire them. I have to tell them that this isn't the truth at all times, unless they have some special ability.

This is the biggest difference for me between working as a psychotherapist and a coach. Coaching allows me the freedom to be more directive with clients than therapy does. I still empower them to self-advocate, but I'm able to do it in more of a partnership role than I can as a therapist. Despite this difference, I am still an objective lens who isn't afraid to challenge mindsets or actions that hold my client back.

In my experience, outcome is very important and how you are going to evaluate it. Outcome is going to help you realise what you are good into and where also need to work on your skills as well before going to next client. Sometimes you need to add a new skill set and learn so you can help your clients and meet their expectations. Once you are yourself satisfied with the outcome then definitely it will automatically create a referral chain for you within the industry and getting new clients becomes pretty easy. Career counselling is never ending sequence of events because sometimes the same client is happy for a moment with outcome and then realise they have developed new interests which they want to pursue.

In my experience, the best thing a career coach can do is to help their client see their circumstances from a different perspective. People have a remarkable capacity to fill their head with unsubstantiated and sometimes unverifiable theories. The best coach encourages their client to reframe these thinking patterns into something both encouraging and realistic. Career counseling is deeply noble work.

When I find my own expectations drifting away from my client's goals and expectations, I rely on my training in Motivational Interviewing. This counseling technique helps me figure out where my client is in their process when pursuing a career change. MI outlines stages of change, so when I encounter resistance from the client, I can roll with it. I'm supporting and meeting them where they are; my timeline is irrelevant!

One thing I was taught in graduate school is that I cannot work harder than my client and I hold tightly onto that advice today. I prioritize aligning my own expectations along with my clients'. The timeline and success of coaching depend upon the client's willingness to do the work between sessions. I provide my clients with best guidance I can and the rest is up to them.

I take the view that careers information and guidance should be essential components of careers education, preferably provided within accredited curricula. My approach is encompassed in the SOARing to Success framework (or meta model) and published in two editions (please see and use the book 2022), enabling personalised learning and holistic development for all students, leading to realistic, implementable aspirations, graduate level employability and career management aligned with sustainable development goals in our changing, challenging world. Can we afford not to do this?