What skills do you need as a career counselor in different settings?

To succeed as a career counselor, the first thing you will need is a huge dose of empathy for those looking for help. Be it budding talent trying to enter the market, mid-career professionals seeking to pivot after a layoff, or retirees trying to keep their relevance in their senior years, they all carry a level of stress you need to acknowledge, validate, and help them cope with. An empathic counselor will break their resistance, instill trust and create a can-do attitude.

One of the things you need in a school setting is familiarity with STEM fields and opportunities such as OJT (on-the-job training) and programs inside and outside of the college system that offer educational training where kids are exposed to more than just typical 4 year college programs. These are better than average paying jobs that students can enter into with limited training and develop life skills without going into 6-figure debt and they rarely get the push/promotion in high schools that the universities get.

I work in a college and I need to be familiar with specific industries because I work with students in specific programs. I follow local companies, and I gather labour market information to stay on top of what is happening in those industries. Students are busy with academics so I like to provide them with tips that can help them now for their job search later. I also work with mostly international students so I believe it is important to explain the cultural differences of job searching in Canada.

In a UK HEI you can add in event planning & coordination, group facilitation, career skills training & curriculum learning aligned to module outcomes. You may be teaching & assessing work alongside your 1-2-1 work, supporting the development and delivery of employability initiatives in the curriculum & reporting on employability data to Faculty. You may be aligned to specific disciplines and need an awareness of relevant industries, but a student/graduate from any discipline can walk through the door, so you need to be highly skilled in your IAG practice. That's why it's such a brilliant career. Add in being an external trainer for AGCAS, I'd say I wear at least 6 hats in my job, and love them all (well, apart from the data).

You also need to be familiar with the school settings if you deal with retraining programs for your participants. You may not need to know as much as those directly working in the school settings, but you do need to have at least a basic working knowledge.

I absolutely agree! My career coaching has focused on the diverse populations you mentioned with immigrants, fellow veterans, mental health, trauma and those with disabilities. This type of coaching requires much patience and creative problem solving. The various mental health challenges are frequently untreated and I've had to be firm about the fact I am not a therapist but a empathetic ear. Most of the coaching I offer involves confidence building and leadership development paired with interview practice. Traditional HR techniques don't accommodate the flexibility and complicated life challenges for these clients. Flex work and remote work are usually the best opportunities. #visionarypathway #traumainformed #empathy #community

If you work as a Career Counselor in private practice, I believe you need to have an Agile mindset because each client comes with different life paths, patterns of competencies, level of experience, career consciousness and intention, as well as personal expectation. The CC needs to address each challenge in a solution-oriented mindset and find out the best options along the way. A different plan for same type of context in opposite clients is the way to succeed.

Agree, also be prepared to be and encourage Holistic thinking and feeling. Clients have to be prepared to honestly ask self-evaluating questions and be willing to produce actionable tasks based on their findings.

Regardless of the setting, one of the most important skills you'll need as a career counselor is that of empowerment. You are there to empower your client to act, NOT force your judgement or tell them what you think they should do. Knowing the difference between coaching and advising is key here. There are times when your client will need to rely on your professional expertise, but then there are other times (as often as possible) when they will need to trust their own gut and develop their own solutions as they shape their lives. As a career counselor, your job is to facilitate that creative process and empower them to act independently.

My hope is I can hear and be as clear about what the person I am helping needs. I suspect that people who are seeking that thing they've always wanted professionally are turning to coaches because they haven't experienced true investment by someone in their past. (Even if that person *wanted* to help, but the amount on their plate didn't provide the freedom to give that investment to another person.) If I can make sure those I help are really listened to, and I can take a subsequent action that shows them that, I believe we'll be successful more often than not.

A good career counselor is: 1. A good prober, listener, and data evaluator. 2. Well read about career diversity. 3. Good presentation skills