Career Counseling : A Psychological Approach (Jossey-Bass Higher Education Series)

Rating:
Summary: a must-have for any career counselor
Review: great book to have in a career counselor library. author did an exceptional job in explaining/describing steps to an effective career decision. book was easy to read.

Rating:
Summary: a must-have for any career counselor
Review: great book to have in a career counselor library. author did an exceptional job in explaining/describing steps to an effective career decision. book was easy to read.

Rating:
Summary: A good coverage of the basics of career counselling, but...
Review: I must admit to a touch of cynicism when I first started reading this book. Published in 1987, I was unsure how applicable the book's ideas would be to the present. Also, the preface states that one of the book's targeted audiences is "[c]linical psychologists, social workers, and others with no specific training to career counselling" (p. xii), and I was a little sceptical that such professionals could confidently add career counselling to their repertoire of services by simply reading this book. While I believe further reading and training would definitely be required for people wanting to become career practitioners, this book nonetheless provides an excellent and readable overview of career counselling techniques and issues that are still relevant to today's job market.

The book starts by outlining existing theories of career development, including those of Ginzberg, Super, Roe, Holland and Krumboltz. The overview is deliberately brief (and now dated), so readers seeking a more comprehensive literature review should look elsewhere, but it serves its purpose in acquainting readers with the theoretical basics and having them move on to the practicalities of career counselling. The book then continues to describe its recommended process for career counselling, from client assessment to searching and applying for jobs. Each topic is discussed within its own chapter.

The first chapters cover setting objectives for counselling, the need to define clear expectations for the counselling, and client assessment. This section of the book advocates the use work-related preference interviews for determining what kind of work would be most suitable for clients, but urges counsellors to consider other factors as well. A valuable theme that is established in these chapters is that career decision-making does not occur in isolation, and that career counsellors should consider as much information as possible about the client's background, interests, needs, abilities, and psychological issues (such as low self-esteem) that may impact on the counselling process.

Subsequent chapters describe steps for generating and selecting career alternatives. Practical advice is given about how to help the client organise occupations into groupings, generate possible choices, and refine these. One very positive message that emerged from this part of the book was the idea that clients should become active participants in this process. The book encourages counsellors to teach clients information gathering skills, and to give them the responsibility of researching each option. It provides some suggestions for methods of weighing up choices (such as pros and cons exercises), but emphasises that the client should ultimately be the one to make the decision.

The latter chapters of the book discuss devising plans for achieving career objectives, searching for jobs, and interview taking. Although some solid advice is offered, one objection I had was the book's framing of client indecisiveness as being automatically negative, as indecision and leaving options open may be a rational strategy in an unstable and continually changing labour market. And in the section on planning, although "flexible" plans are described, the examples tended to fixate on only few outcomes in the distant future. I feel this is problematic, given the many influences on career decision-making and the large number of happenings that could occur within a long period that could change the course of a person's career. What seemed to be missing was advice to clients to maximise their opportunities by trying for multiple options, building their skills portfolio, and learning strategies for adapting to uncertainty and unforseen circumstances.

Overall, this book offers a solid grounding in basics of career counselling. Although its content would need to be supplemented with further knowledge in some areas (e.g. information about cognitive behavioural therapy, résumé-writing, and interview techniques), the book would make an excellent resource for career counsellors, and would likely be of interest to other social professionals considering doing this type of work.

Rating:
Summary: A good coverage of the basics of career counselling, but...
Review: I must admit to a touch of cynicism when I first started reading this book. Published in 1987, I was unsure how applicable the book's ideas would be to the present. Also, the preface states that one of the book's targeted audiences is "[c]linical psychologists, social workers, and others with no specific training to career counselling" (p. xii), and I was a little sceptical that such professionals could confidently add career counselling to their repertoire of services by simply reading this book. While I believe further reading and training would definitely be required for people wanting to become career practitioners, this book nonetheless provides an excellent and readable overview of career counselling techniques and issues that are still relevant to today's job market.

The book starts by outlining existing theories of career development, including those of Ginzberg, Super, Roe, Holland and Krumboltz. The overview is deliberately brief (and now dated), so readers seeking a more comprehensive literature review should look elsewhere, but it serves its purpose in acquainting readers with the theoretical basics and having them move on to the practicalities of career counselling. The book then continues to describe its recommended process for career counselling, from client assessment to searching and applying for jobs. Each topic is discussed within its own chapter.

The first chapters cover setting objectives for counselling, the need to define clear expectations for the counselling, and client assessment. This section of the book advocates the use work-related preference interviews for determining what kind of work would be most suitable for clients, but urges counsellors to consider other factors as well. A valuable theme that is established in these chapters is that career decision-making does not occur in isolation, and that career counsellors should consider as much information as possible about the client's background, interests, needs, abilities, and psychological issues (such as low self-esteem) that may impact on the counselling process.

Subsequent chapters describe steps for generating and selecting career alternatives. Practical advice is given about how to help the client organise occupations into groupings, generate possible choices, and refine these. One very positive message that emerged from this part of the book was the idea that clients should become active participants in this process. The book encourages counsellors to teach clients information gathering skills, and to give them the responsibility of researching each option. It provides some suggestions for methods of weighing up choices (such as pros and cons exercises), but emphasises that the client should ultimately be the one to make the decision.

The latter chapters of the book discuss devising plans for achieving career objectives, searching for jobs, and interview taking. Although some solid advice is offered, one objection I had was the book's framing of client indecisiveness as being automatically negative, as indecision and leaving options open may be a rational strategy in an unstable and continually changing labour market. And in the section on planning, although "flexible" plans are described, the examples tended to fixate on only few outcomes in the distant future. I feel this is problematic, given the many influences on career decision-making and the large number of happenings that could occur within a long period that could change the course of a person's career. What seemed to be missing was advice to clients to maximise their opportunities by trying for multiple options, building their skills portfolio, and learning strategies for adapting to uncertainty and unforseen circumstances.

Overall, this book offers a solid grounding in basics of career counselling. Although its content would need to be supplemented with further knowledge in some areas (e.g. information about cognitive behavioural therapy, résumé-writing, and interview techniques), the book would make an excellent resource for career counsellors, and would likely be of interest to other social professionals considering doing this type of work.