What’s career counseling?
Your career and your job have a profound impact on your life, self-fulfillment, and well-being. Career counseling helps you make the right decisions with the support of a qualified professional.
Career counseling is a service that helps people define their career path, search for a job, and make changes to their careers.
It involves one-on-one sessions with a career counselor asking you questions about your current work situations, qualifications, experience, and goals. Sometimes psychological tests pertaining to cognitive ability, aptitude, personality, and others, may be used.
Career counselors can review your resume or curriculum, cover letter, and LinkedIn profile to help you enhance them. They can also provide you with psychological support if experiencing a difficult situation.
Career counselors teach you strategies and techniques to set clear goals, find a new job, refine your resume (CV), manage your emotions, communicate effectively, negotiate salaries, and pass job interviews.
Consider career counseling a combination of consulting, training, and psychological support to help you progress your career and feel more satisfied with your job.
Is career counseling the same as career coaching?
In real life, career counseling and career coaching are often used interchangeably and are practically the same.
From an academic perspective, there are some small differences. Career coaching should be less directive than career counseling or consulting. For example, career coaches should focus more on helping the coachees realize what the best career path is for them through a set of guided questions. Career coaching should be more focused on raising the coachee’s awareness about their personal resources and potential to define their goals and action plans.
Career counseling can include a series of questions aimed at assessing your situation and discovering optimal resources to aid you in achieving your goals. Think of a career consultant who makes suggestions based on years of expertise. Moreover, career counselors should also be qualified to provide some basic psychological support.
In summary, career coaches should ask you questions to help you become aware of how to achieve your goals without giving explicit instructions.
Career counselors, like consultants, also tell you what to do and provide you with psychological support.
Who is career counseling or career coaching for?
Career counseling is for anybody who needs professional support to begin, improve, or change their career or job. It can be helpful to graduates, junior professionals, as well as managers and executives.
Below there are some questions to realize if you need career counseling. If you answer yes to one or more of these questions, you’ll probably benefit from career counseling.
- Do you feel uncertain about the best career or job for you?
- Are you dissatisfied with your current job and would like to change it?
- Do you want to advance your career and feel more self-fulfilled?
- Are you struggling to find a job?
- Do you need help to improving your resume (CV), LinkedIn profile, or cover letter?
- Do you want to prepare for a job interview or other selection processes?
- Are you considering becoming a freelancer or business owner?
- Do you want to achieve a better work-life balance?
Reflect on the questions above to identify the specific areas in which career counseling can help you.
What are the benefits of career counseling?
- Gain clarity and insight about your best career path, based on your personality, values, interests, skills, experience, and labor market opportunities.
- Make sound career decisions with the support of a neutral career counselor examining facts and data as well.
- Learn new strategies to find a job and promote yourself.
- Overcome psychological issues related to your unsatisfactory work situation, for example, frustration, stress, and demotivation.
- Advance your career quickly with the support of a career counselor or coach.
- Learn how to answer job interview questions and pass other selection tests.
- Align your job to your lifestyle.
- Improve your work-life balance.
- Become more confident and increase your self-esteem.
- Manage career transitions effectively.
How to choose a career counselor or career coach?
There are many questionable career counselors and coaches out there. Choose carefully. Check their education, qualifications, and experience.
Career counseling involves a variety of skills and knowledge comprising psychology, recruitment, and labor market dynamics.
I recommend working with organizational psychologists or business psychologists who offer career counseling services, like I do. They are skilled in both psychological and business aspects. Choose professionals who have experience working with both companies and individuals.
Do you need a career counselor or career coach?
Contact me if you want to begin, improve, or change your career and job. I can help you.
I’m a business and organizational psychologist with over 14 years of experience in career counseling. I’ve advised, trained, and coached hundreds of people to improve their jobs and careers.
Andrea Miriello
Business and organizational psychologist
Career counselor and career coach