EXTRACT FROM Career Counselling
(by R Nathan & L Hill, Sage 1992)

INTRODUCTION

People think I'm successful. I'm well paid, have a nice house and I'm good at my job. But I feel more and more dissatisfied with what I do.

I can't take a year off. How will it look on my CV? Employers will think I've been wasting my time.

Everyone's telling me I've got a lot of potential,. but I've lost interest in studying.

When I married Sam, I thought he would be such a good provider. Now he's been made redundant.

The key words in these statements - successful, wasting, potential, provider, redundant - reflect a valuing of success and achievement. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that many people who approach a career counsellor, influenced by this pressure to succeed, may feel to some degree a failure in the eyes of partners, peers, employers or parents.

These assumptions, influences and values raise a number of considerations for career counsellors. Our clients may want to turn their feelings of failure into a successful solution fairly urgently to put things right, to find the right career, to feel all right. Their need to get things right may be transferred into expectations of the career counselling process to come up with the right answer, and to focus on extrinsic aspects of job satisfaction, such as money, status and working conditions, rather than considering their personal strengths and weaknesses.

Additional external pressures, such as keeping up the mortgage payments, saving face with friends or getting into the best college course tend to discourage clients from addressing any personal, and perhaps painful emotional issues. These include understanding, accepting and building on changes in personal values; and coping

with any negative feelings, such as the loss and anger so often felt after losing a job.

What is career counselling?

Most people, if asked to define career counselling, are likely to believe that it resembles the approach proposed by Parsons, as long. ago as 1909. He wrote:

In the wise choice of vocation, there are three factors.

  1. A clear understanding of yourself
  2. A knowledge of the requirements and prospects in different lines of work
  3. True reasoning on the relations of these two groups of facts.

This approach is based on the measurement, through testing, of the client's aptitudes and interests, followed by a recommendation by an 'expert' on occupations which provide a match in terms of the aptitudes and interests required. This process of 'talent matching' (sometimes known as the 'test and tell' approach) was the predominant form of assistance available to people seeking career help until the 1960s. For a number of reasons, we believe that career counsellors should not accept their clients' demands and expectation for 'advice on the best career.

First, making appropriate occupational decisions needs the assistance of skilled and sensitive counselling: to reach the point where a rational decision can be made, emotional issues such as managing relationships, coping with loss and change and recovering from damaged self-esteem may first have to be addressed.

Secondly, since a 'job for life' is no longer a reality, lifelong decision-making skills are more conducive to the continuing challenge of making appropriate life and occupational choices, which themselves are increasingly interdependent.

Thirdly, employers require an increasingly flexible approach to their changing requirements, expecting employees to take responsibility for managing their own development, which might mean creating or accepting a 'development opportunity', such as a secondment, rather than waiting for promotion. There is also an increasing recognition that individuals themselves progress through a number of life stages (Super, 1980) and changes in their role requirements and responsibilities (Herriot, 1992).

Fourthly, making decisions is very much a matter of personal responsibility. A counselling approach empowers people to take such responsibility where they, not the counsellor, are the 'expert'.

The career counsellor, like all other counsellors, provides time, support, attention, skill and a structure which enables clients to become more aware of their own resources in order to lead a more satisfying life. We see career counselling as a process which enables people to recognise and utilise their resources to make career

figure 1.1 How career counselling overlaps with other forms of help

related decisions and manage career-related problems. Although focusing on the work-related part of a person's life, it also takes into account the interdependence of career and non-career considerations.

This book focuses on the practice of career counselling. Figure 1.1 illustrates how career counselling overlaps with other kinds of counselling and careers guidance.

'Counselling-at-Work' refers to the set of counselling activities offered by employers for their employees, and may address work or non-work-related problems, including concerns regarding career satisfaction. Such counselling services are sometimes known as Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs). Their scope is described in Megranahan (1989).
The term 'guidance' is commonly used in the UK to mean 'help for individuals to make choices about education, training and employment' (Hawthorn, 1991). Practitioners who offer help with career choices often describe this work as careers (or vocational) guidance. This is somewhat confusing as the term 'guidance' has connotations of directive, prescriptive help. In fact 'guidance' is an umbrella term which encompasses counselling as well as activities such as informing, coaching, teaching, assessment and advocacy.
In addressing personal concerns regarding redundancy, retraining, relocation, retirement, relationships at work, promotion, career breaks and stress, career counselling necessarily overlaps with personal counselling.

figure 1.2 Who career help?

The provision of career counselling

Unfortunately, in the UK the provision for adults seeking career help is very patchy and largely uncoordinated, and much of what does exist is neither informed by a counselling ethos nor staffed by people who are trained in a counselling approach. Help for young people in making career decisions is offered nationally by careers teachers in schools and professionally qualified careers officers employed by the local authority careers service. Government backed career help for adults is not available on a national basis in the same comprehensive, independent and professional way.

The various professionals involved in helping others to face career dilemmas are shown in Figure 1.2.

There are some careers services which offer help to adults as well as young people. Universities and polytechnics have careers advisers who provide independent help, which is usually free of charge. However, the service is restricted to people who are graduating from their courses.
Parts of the country have services for the general public which offer information on learning opportunities. Since many people look for courses when they are seeking a career change, the educational guidance provided by these services overlaps to some extent with career counselling (see Edwards, 1989). Some agencies which provide educational or training courses, for example colleges of further education, adult education institutes and Training and Enterprise Councils, also offer guidance to any adult, but as this is part of a marketing exercise it is unlikely to be independent.

The Employment Department offers a number of programmes (currently known as Restart and Job Clubs) through which adults can receive free and independent guidance, but these programmes are restricted to the long-term unemployed.

Some employers offer career help to their staff, for example, career development workshops for women, help with job hunting for people who are being made redundant, retirement planning services, and career counselling sessions with a personnel officer. However, clearly there are difficulties involved in providing help which is independent and client centered rather than organisation centered. Some national organisations, for example, the Armed Forces, the Law Society and the Royal National Institute for the Blind, also offer career help to special groups. Because career counselling provision for adults in the UK has been so sparsely resourced by the government, there has been a mushrooming of independent services, staffed by specialist career counsellors, occupational psychologists and counselling psychologists, for people with career-related dissatisfactions. These services differ in their use of psychometric tests. There are some services which still offer a 'test and tell' approach, in which the client is given a series (or 'battery') of tests measuring aptitudes, occupational interests and aspects of personality, the results of which are then interpreted by a consultant psychologist and a report with recommendations subsequently written. Other career counsellors may make no use of tests, but use counselling skills to, assist clients in focusing on occupational and other aspects of their lives. Still others will use a combination of assessment and counselling, with a greater or lesser emphasis on one or the other.

Outplacement consultants offer specific help to executives and others facing a job loss. This may involve some counselling to assist recovery from the trauma of the redundancy, but more usually focuses on coaching and support in job hunting. Such services are often paid for by the company as part of a severance package.
Confusingly, some practitioners who describe themselves as career counsellors are not doing career counselling in the sense that they subscribe to a counselling philosophy or have training in counselling skills.
Although traditionally offered on a one-to-one basis, career counselling is increasingly being offered in groups. There are a number of advantages of working in groups:

  • Participants realise hat they are not alone - others are facing similar issues.

  • Mutual support is readily available both during and after the group's existence.

  • A group provides a wider range of resources, ideas and information.

  • There is less dependency on the counsellor as 'expert'.

  • Groups provide more opportunities to use active techniques such as coaching in job-hunting skills.

  • They are economical to run.

Many such groups are run within employing organisations, and may be focused primarily on occupational issues, more broadly on life and career development, or may be part of a positive action programme, for example, directed at women or black people. Some independent agencies offer career and life-review workshops, whilst there is government backing for projects to assist the long term unemployed to assess their job-related skills and receive support and coaching in job hunting. A combination of group and individual approaches may be used as part of a career counselling programme. For example, the administration of psychometric tests can be done in a group, followed by individual feedback and counselling, followed by interview practice in a group. Most of the approaches and techniques described in this book are amenable to either a one-to-one or a group approach.

There are a number of career counselling-related activities which are increasingly used in organisations, including mentoring, development centres and self-help tools. For a detailed review of the practice of career counselling in organisations, see Jackson (1990), which describes a plethora of activities failing under the banner of career counselling.

Box 1. 1 summarises the services which professional career counsellors may offer.

Box 1.1 The services which may be offered by career counsellors

One-to-one career counselling:
  • one-off consultation;
  • a series of one-to-one meetings without assessment; 
  • a series of one-to-one meetings with test administration, feedback and counselling;
  • a series of career counselling meetings with written assignments (but no tests);
  • a series of career counselling meetings with tests and written assignments.

Group career counselling:

Career development workshops (also known by other titles, such as career planning or review workshops, or self development groups)

Access to a careers library

Access to computerised occupational information and self help careers guidance tools

Coaching in job-hunting techniques, including CV writing and interview practice: this may be one-to-one or group based

The majority of career counsellors provide their clients with access to careers information in some form. An approach to occupational information which is consistent with a counselling ethos is examined in detail in Chapter 5. Some career counsellors make use of computerised occupational information and other careers guidance tools. This is a specialised topic for which there

is no space in this book, although Appendices C and D refer to useful resources. Job-hunting techniques are not the domain of this book, but are detailed in Floyed and Nathan (1991).

Who should read this book?
This book will assist specialist career counsellors and advisers who offer career counselling as their main work role. The skills and techniques will also be of value to other practitioners who encounter people who need help in choosing, changing or developing their careers. Practicing counsellors and psychotherapists, whether they are working with individuals or groups, will find the structured approach and the specific occupational considerations of benefit when a job-related concern is affecting a client's well-being. Other professionals who use career counselling skills and techniques, or who offer career counselling within another role, will find the book a thorough and practical guide to the process of career counselling and the different techniques available. This group includes personnel and training managers, recruitment and outplacement consultants, careers officers and educational guidance advisers, who may need to assist staff and clients in addressing career-related issues as part of their role. For the sake of simplicity and clarity, throughout the book we refer to 'career counsellors' to cover both categories.
Although the main focus is on work with adults, the book will also be valuable to anyone helping young people to make occupational decisions. Ball (1984) focuses more specifically on careers work with young people. This book is a manual, not an exposition of theory. A detailed consideration of career choice and development theories will be found in Arthur et al. (1989).

Our approach to career counselling
Taylor (1985) has identified a number of critical questions applicable to the practice of career counselling.

To what extent should the client's feelings be expressed and dealt with, or is the focus on the rational aspects of decision making? It is unrealistic to expect that all clients will be ready to consider rationally the choices available. Career counselling should allow clients' feelings to be expressed where such expression will further the goals of career counselling.
For some people, the degree of anxiety felt about a work or non work problem will need to be addressed either prior to or concurrent with career counselling. For example, a divorce may need to address feelings of loss while seeking to support herself financially.

For other people, various 'self-defeating beliefs' may be contributing to unproductive behavior not only in making rational decisions about a career, but also at work (see Chapter 4).

Who should collect or provide the information - client, counsellor or both? We believe that this is a joint responsibility. The two main types of information the client needs in order to make an occupational decision are (1) information about him or herself, and (2) information about occupations.

Our practice is to make use of various sources of information about a client, including self-assessment exercises, psychometric tests, and information emerging from discussion in counselling sessions. Both the counsellor and the client are information collectors, although the collection belongs to the client.
Regarding information about occupations, our contract is that the client is responsible for researching information about occupations, whilst the counsellor points the client towards sources (see Chapter 5).

Who is the expert (that is, who should be in charge, deciding how the problems raised should be handled) - the client, counsellor or both? We believe that clients are very much the experts as far as handling their own problems is concerned. It can be easy for clients to give up their power to the career counsellor, and adopt a passive approach to the 'expert advice giver'. We like to involve clients in choosing whether to take tests, and by completing homework assignments, listening to and reflecting upon tape recordings of feedback discussions and researching options. Whilst some counsellors and clients may have misgivings about the tape recording of sessions, we have found this to be a powerful tool consistent with the values of counselling (see Chapter 5).

Who should have the responsibility for making the decision - client or counsellor? What we are describing in this book is an approach to career counselling firmly rooted in a counselling, not a didactic or advisory, ethos. The responsibility for decision making is therefore with the client, whilst the counsellor is responsible for facilitating the process.

What should the predominant counsellor style be - directive, collaborative, interpretive or reflective? Career counsellors need to be able to adapt their styles according to the needs of the client and the stage of the career counselling process. A prescriptive or directive style is inappropriate to the approach described in this book.

A reflective style may well be appropriate early in the career counselling, but may also be appropriate together with tentative interpretations and a more confronting style later on. In the final stages of career counselling, when action is possibly being addressed, a reinforcing style may be appropriate. At such times, we might use an informative approach, giving clients access to new knowledge. We see the entire career counselling process as facilitating clients' resources to manage their careers more effectively. Since many clients who come for individual career counselling undervalue their strengths and skills, we also use a supportive style to affirm their intrinsic value. When it is appropriate, we would also use a cathartic style, enabling clients to free themselves from negative emotions through, for example, crying and expressing anger. See Heron (1990) for a fuller discussion on styles of intervention.

What should be discussed in career counselling? The client's personal emotional problems, self-appraisal, decision making, tests results, information on options, evaluating options? Our approach recognises the interdependence of problems and that personal issues need to be addressed within the career counselling process. The question of when personal counselling is more appropriate than career counselling is addressed in Chapter 7.

Summary of the contents

In Chapter 2 we shall examine the kinds of difficulties and dilemmas that clients commonly bring to career counselling. These include problems associated with particular life stages and events; the balance between work and non-work aspects of life; difficulties in making or implementing career decisions; problems brought about by change in organisations, and performance-related issues. In each case, we indicate the kind of concerns presented, any underlying problems and the implications for career counsellors.
The next four chapters are concerned with the stages in the career counselling process, which are summarised in Box 1.2.

If clients are thoroughly briefed about the nature of the service, and can decide for themselves whether career counselling is appropriate, they are more likely to gain from the career counselling than if they had arrived with little or no preparation. Chapter 3 addresses the important but often underemphasised screening and contracting stages, during which the client can become clear about what to expect from career counselling, and the counsellor can explore the likelihood of being able to help this person meet his or her expectations. An initial meeting can be used as a preliminary.

box 1.2 Stages of Career counselling
Stage client tasks Counsellor task
Screening contracting exploring Making a preliminary assessment of the suitability exploring of career counselling.
Undertaking written preparation.
testing out readiness for and appropriateness of career counselling.

Exploring presenting concerns and influences on career and educational choices. Clarifying expectations of career counselling. Discussing and agreeing contract.

 Educating and informing clients about career counselling.

Evaluating the client's readiness for and appropriateness of career counselling. Suggesting more suitable forms of help, if necessary. Building rapport. Facilitating exploration.
Enabling clients Considering the questions: 'Who am I? Where am I now? What do I want? Where do I want to be?

Complete self assessment exercises, psychometric tests and questionnaires, as appropriate. Being prepared to tackle the question 'What's stopping me? Researching occupational information.

Facilitating exploration of feelings and beliefs associated with career problem/concern. Helping client to identify important themes and integrate self understanding.
Making appropriate use of self-assessment exercises and psychometric tests and questionnaires Helping client to overcome blocks to action, using challenging skills, if appropriate.
Signposting occupational information for the client.
Action and Endings Complete decision-making and action planning exercise Developing options and choosing between options.

Putting decision into action.
Agreeing research tasks, if appropriate.
Addressing fears of change
Evaluating need for continued support
Reviewing progress made towards objectives during career counselling

Enabling clients to develop options and choose between them.
Supporting client in developing action plan. Agreeing research tasks, if appropriate. Helping clients face ambivalence about the future. Exploring client's need for continued support. Stressing importance of maintaining momentum. Helping client to identify resources and sources of support.

discussion, without full commitment on either side, and can fulfill a number of purposes:

It allows clients to 'opt out' without further commitment.
It enables career counsellors to evaluate the readiness of clients for career counselling.
It educates clients about the career counselling process, beyond any written documentation.
It allows both counsellor and client to discuss the most appropriate 'contract', including the usefulness of assessment tests for this person.

The development of self-understanding is central to Chapters 4 and
5.Chapter 4 looks at the process of enabling clients to address the
questions:' Who am 1?'; 'What do 1 want?' and 'What is stopping me?' For some clients, greater self-understanding is all that is needed, and this may promote new energy or a change of attitude. For others, self-understanding is just the first stage. They want career counselling to help them make decisions or formulate action plans. Chapter 4 also addresses the crucial stage between promoting self-understanding and taking action - that of enabling clients to reduce the effects of any blocks to action. In particular, we look at the importance of assisting clients to evaluate the impact of self-defeating beliefs and values.

Chapter 5 presents many techniques which career counsellors can use to promote self-understanding in their clients, and describes how these techniques, including between-sessions homework assignments, psychometric tests and questionnaires and occupational information, can be woven into career counselling. Tests can be appropriate and beneficial if they are administered sensitively and at the right point in the career counselling. If tests are given together with other tools, such as interest questionnaires and self assessment exercises, they contribute towards, but do not dominate, any feedback discussions. All 'data' which are produced during the career counselling process can be of value. Data may include written preparation by clients, feedback by the counsellor and responses by clients to such feedback.
Many counselling practitioners find it hard to enable their clients to move on from the exploration and clarification stages of the career counselling process to the 'decision-making' and 'action' stages, where these are appropriate. In Chapter 6, practical techniques of encouraging clients to make and follow through their decisions are described. These include exercises for 'choosing between options', completing 'action plans' and addressing fears of change.

Chapter 6 also considers the value of 'follow-up', an aspect of career counselling which is often overlooked.

The boundary between career and personal counselling, the question of referral, and working with 'third parties' such as employers or partners are some of the key issues for career counsellors which are explored in Chapter 7. Career counsellors need general counselling skills. These are summarised in this chapter, together with a description of some of the areas of specialist knowledge which career counsellors need, for example, an understanding of factors relevant in career management.

Like all counsellors, career counsellors must maintain good professional practice in order to maximise the quality of the service provided, the protection of clients and their own well-being. The elements of monitoring and evaluation, non-managerial supervision and counsellor self-management are described in Chapter 8.

The book is illustrated throughout with case study examples which are derived from individuals who have presented their concerns to a career counsellor. Names and identifying material have been changed to safeguard client confidentiality.

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