Here's how you can excel as a career counselor in the early stages of your career.

To excel in career counseling, consider the following strategies: 1. Fully understand clients' concerns, goals, and values. 2.Create a supportive and non-judgmental environment. 3.Utilize aptitude tests, personality assessments, and career inventories to guide clients. 4.Help clients identify their strengths, passions, and interests. 5.Collaborate with clients to set realistic and achievable career goals. 6.Connect clients with industry professionals, job fairs. 7.Stay updated on industry trends, job market demands, and best practices in career counseling. 8.Tailor your approach to diverse clients' needs and backgrounds. 9. Leverage digital tools, online platforms, and social media to enhance counseling and job search processes.

Being a career counselor is a very responsible job. You can't counsel to every individual. You need to identify your niche. And then it's very important to keep reading about your domain and industry. Guide right. Down just guide anything. A Career counselor needs to have 360-degree view on the market dynamics.

Career counsellors are required to be well-versed with various career assessment tools. These might include personality tests, aptitude tests and career inventories, among others. Knowledge of these tools provides a concrete foundation for making sensible career suggestions.

You build rapport when you develop mutual trust, friendship and affinity with someone. Building rapport can be incredibly beneficial to your career – it helps you to establish good interpersonal relationships, and this can open many doors for you.

If you? have leverage, you hold the advantage in a situation or the stronger position in a contest, physical or otherwise. The lever is a tool for getting more work done with less physical force.

**Perspective:** Networking is essential for career counselors. Attend industry events, join associations, and connect with other counselors to learn from their experiences and build relationships. Networking also facilitates collaboration with educational institutions and employers, providing valuable insights, resources, and referral sources, all of which support career counselors in the early stages of their career.

Practice practice, practice! To get better at doing something, you need to do more of the thing. So to be better at career counseling, you need to do more career counseling. Consider finding folks in your network and provide some guidance to friends. Then Their friends. Or community groups, or really any anybody who will be willing to give you a chance. After every interaction, take some time to reflect and improve. Ask yourself “what you well?” And “what can you do better?” Then be sure to implement both next time.

My colleagues fall in two broad categories, those who started a career consulting job shortly after graduating, and those like me who came late as a second career. In my case after 25 years as a manager in the pharmaceutical and biomedical industry, where I ended with a global executive role. The tendency I had to fight initially was to see my candidates as I would have seen members of the teams I managed. They are not, I had to learn that candidates must always be offered advice, but then it’s up to them to follow it, they have the privilege of making their own minds and obviously to make mistakes. As a consultant I have to provide them with sound advice, and I know I do, judging from the very positive feedback I receive.