Carreer counselling

• Frank Parsons (1909) outlined a process for choosing a career and

initiated the vocational guidance movement.
• Choosing a career is more than simply deciding what one will do to earn
a living. Occupations influence a person’s whole way of life, including
physical and mental health.
• Qualitative research indicates that individuals who appear most happy
in their work are committed to following their interests, exhibit a
breadth of personal competencies and strengths,
• and function in work environments that are characterized by freedom,
challenge, meaning, and a positive social atmosphere (Henderson,
2000).
Important aspects of career counseling,
which include the following:
1. “The need for career counseling is greater than the need for
psychotherapy.” :Career counseling deals with the inner and outer
world of individuals, whereas most other counseling approaches
deal only with internal events.
2. “Career counseling can be therapeutic.”
A positive correlation exists between career and personal adjustment
(Crites, 1969; Hinkelman & Luzzo, 2007; Krumboltz, 1994; Super, 1957).
Clients who successfully cope with career decisions may gain skill and
con fidence in the ability to tackle other problem areas.
• 3.“Career counseling is more difficult than psychotherapy.”
• Crites states that, to be an effective career counselor, a person must
deal with both personal and work variables and know how the two
interact.
• “Being knowledgeable and proficient in career counseling requires that
counselors draw from a variety of both personality and career
development theories and techniques and that they continuously be
able to gather and provide current information about the world of work”
(Imbimbo, 1994, p. 51).
• The same is not equally true for counseling, which often focuses on the
inner world of the client
CAREER COUNSELING ASSOCIATIONS
AND CREDENTIALS
• The National Career Development Association, or NCDA (formerly
the National Vocational Guidance Association, or NVGA.
• The NCDA, the oldest division within the ACA, traces its roots back to
1913 (Sheeley, 1978, 1988; Stephens, 1988).
• The association comprises professionals in business and industry,
rehabilitation agencies, government, private practice, and educational
settings who affiliate with the NCDA’s special-interest groups, such as
Work and Mental Health, Substance Abuse in the Workplace, and
Employee Assistance Programs (Parker, 1994; Smith, Engels, & Bonk,
1985). .
• National Employment Counselors Association, or NECA(
http://geocities.com/employmentcounseling/neca.html),
• are the two divisions within the American Counseling Association (ACA)
primarily devoted to career development and counseling.
• The NECA’s membership is also diverse but more focused.
• Until 1966, it was an interest group of the NCDA (Meyer, Helwig, Gjernes, &
Chickering, 1985).
• Both divisions publish quarterly journals:
• The Career Development Quarterly (formerly the Vocational Guidance
Quarterly) and
• The Journal of Employment Counseling, respectively.
THE SCOPE OF CAREER COUNSELING
AND CAREERS
• The NCDA defines career counseling as a

• “process of assisting individuals in the development of a life-career

with a focus on the definition of the worker role and how that role
interacts with other life roles” (p. 2).
• Career counselors clearly must consider many factors when helping
persons make career decisions.
• Among these factors are a
• vocational interests, age or stage in life, maturity, gender, familial
obligations, and civic roles (Shallcross, 2009a).
• Some of these factors are represented in various ways.
• For example, the integration and interaction of work and leisure in
one’s career over the life span according to McDaniels (1984) is
expressed in the formula
• C = W + L, where C equals career; W, work; and L, leisure (Gale, 1998,
p. 206).
CAREER INFORMATION
• Career information as
• “information related to the world of work that can be useful in the
process of career development,
• including educational, occupational, and psychosocial information
related to working,
• e.g., availability of training, the nature of work, and status of workers
in different occupations” (Sears, 1982, p. 139).
• Career data, meaning a collection of facts about occupational and
educational opportunities (Niles & Harris-Bowlsbey, 2013).
• Data become information only when they are understood by clients
and used to inform decision making, that is, to assist them to choose
one alternative over another.
• Career guidance involves all activities that seek to disseminate
information about present or future vocations in such a way that
individuals become more knowledgeable and aware about who they
are in relation to the world of work.
Theories of career counselling
• Trait and factor theory
• Developmental theories
• Social coginitive career theory
• Constructivist career theory
Trait and factor theory

• It emphasizes the individual’s innate abilities and acquired interests

and their relation to the demands of the different work situations.
• According to it,individuals have different innate capacities,abilities
and aptitudes for different kinds of work.
• In vocational guidance,the purpose is to match the individuals and the
occupation optimally for mutual benefit.
• Super (1957, 1990) believed that making a career choice is “linked
with implementing one’s vocational self-concept” (Hinkelman &
Luzzo, 2007, p. 143).
• People’s views of themselves are reflected in what they do.
• He suggested that vocational development unfolds in five stages,
each of which contains a developmental task to be com pleted
(Table 13.1).
First stage
• The first stage is growth (from birth to age 14).
• During this stage, with its substages of fantasy (ages 4–10),
• interest (ages 11–12), and
• capacity (ages 13–14), children form a mental picture of themselves in
relation to others.
• Support affirming the multiple dimensions of this stage in Super’s
theory has been substantiated (Palladino Schultheiss, Palma, & Manzi,
2005).
• During the process of growth, children become oriented to the world
of work in many ways (e.g., exploration, information, interests, etc.).
• The second stage, exploration (ages 14–24), has three substages:
• tentative (ages 14–17),
• transition (ages 18–21), and
• trial (ages 22–24).
• The major task of this stage is a general explortion of the world of
work and the specification of a career preference.
• The third stage is known as establishment (ages 24–44).
• Its two substages, trial (ages 24–30) and advancement (ages 31–44),
constitute the major task of becoming established in a preferred and
appropriate field of work.
• Once established, persons can concentrate on advancement until they
tire of their job or reach the top of the profession.
• The fourth stage, maintenance (ages 44–64), has the major task of
preserving what one has already achieved.
• The final stage, decline or disengagement (age 65 to death), is a time
for disengagement from work and alignment with other sources of
satisfaction.
• It has two substages: deceleration (ages 65–70) and retirement (age
71 to death).
• The major contributions of developmental career counseling are its
emphases on the importance of the life span in career decision
making and on career decisions that are influenced by other
processes and events in a person’s life.
• This “life pattern paradigm for career counseling encourages
counselors to consider a client’s aptitudes and interests in a matrix of
life experi ences, not just in comparison to some normative group”
(Savickas, 1989, p. 127).
• Overall, developmental career counseling as conceptualized by Super
has a num ber of applications.
• “For example, it has been used as the framework for career
development programs for children and adolescents” (Brown, 2012, p.
54). In addition, the comprehensive rainbow theory that Super
conceptualized toward the end of his life continues to attract research
interest (Super, 1990; Super, Thompson, & Lindeman, 1988) (Figure
13.2).
• Finally, the theory has been used not only as the basis for career
counseling but also for attempts at understanding the development of
career maturity
GINZBERG’S THEORY
• According to this theory,an individuals move through a series of
stages and the process of occupational choice is influenced by the
individual’s attributes,educational background and situational
constraints.
Social coginitive career theory

• Social–cognitive career theory (SCCT) was first published in 1994 and

has had a tremendous impact on research regarding career choice.
• Social cognitive career theory (SCCT) is a relatively new theory that is
aimed at explaining three interrelated aspects of career development:
(1) how basic academic and career interests develop,
• (2) how educational and career choices are made, and
• (3) how academic and career success is obtained.
• The most important part of this triad is self-efficacy—that is, “a
person’s beliefs regarding her or his ability to successfully perform a
particular task” (Maples & Luzzo, 2005, p. 275)
Among other central propositions of
SCCT are the following:
• 1.“The interaction between people and their environments is highly
dynamic” (i.e., they influence each other)

• 2. “Career-related behavior is influenced by four aspects of the person:

• behavior, self- efficacy, outcome expectations, and goals in addition to
genetically determined characteristics” .

• 3. “Self-efficacy beliefs and expectations of outcomes interact directly to

influence interest development.
• 4. In addition to expectations of outcome, factors such as “gender,
race, physical health, disabilities, and environmental variables
influence self-efficacy development”.
• 5. “Actual career choice and implementation are influenced by a
number of direct and indirect variables other than self-efficacy,
expectations, and goals” (e.g., discrimination, economic variables, and
chance happenings)
• 6. “All things being equal, people with the highest levels of ability and
the strongest self efficacy beliefs perform at the highest level”
(Brown, 2012, p. 69).
Self-efficacy
• According to Bandura (1997),
• a key factor in how people regulate their lives is their
• sense of self-efficacy,
• their beliefs concerning their ability to perform the behaviors needed
to achieve desired outcomes.
• People whose self-efficacy is high have confidence in their ability to
do what it takes to overcome obstacles and achieve their goals.
• A good deal of research has been done on the factors that create
differences in self-efficacy .
• Four important determinants have been identified (Bandura, 1997).
• First and most important is our previous performance experiences in
similar situations.
• Such experiences shape our beliefs about our capabilities.
• For example, as shown in Figure 13.18, college women who felt that they
had mastered the martial arts and emotional-control skills taught in a
physical self-defense training program showed dramatic increases in their
belief that they could escape from or disable a potential assailant or rapist
(Weitlauf et al., 2000).
• A second determinant of self-efficacy is observational learning—that
is, observing others’ behaviors and their outcomes.
• If you observe a person similar to yourself accomplish a particular
goal, then you are likely to believe that if you perform those same
behaviors you will also succeed.
• A striking example of how powerful such expectations can be comes
from the world of sports.
• At one time, physiologists insisted that it was physically impossible for
a human being to run a mile in less than 4 minutes, and no one in the
history of track and field had ever done it.
• Third, self-efficacy can be increased or decreased by verbal
persuasion.
• The messages we get from other people who affirm our abilities or
downgrade them affect our efficacy beliefs.
• Thus, inspirational teachers who convey high standards and a you can
do it convictions can inspire their students to great accomplishments.
KRUMBOLTZ’S THEORY: SOCIAL
LEARNING THEORY
• According to Krumboltz, career decisions are controlled by both
internal and external processes.
• There is continuous learning that results in what Krumboltz labels
• • self-observation generalizations, an overt or covert self-statement
of evaluation that may or may not be true;
• • task-approach skills, an effort by people to project their self-
observation generalizations into the future in order to predict future
events; and
• • actions, implementations of behaviors, such as applying for a job.