This unhappy situation will be corrected only when students can base their occupational choices upon a realistic view of the kinds of jobs that will be open to them. This realistic view is best obtained by learning what jobs previous dropouts and graduates were able to get. This information is readily available in schools which make annual follow-up studies. The new counselor should inquire of his associates and supervisors whether or not such studies have been made. If they have not been, he should proceed promptly to make one himself, preferably with the aid of his students.
Any project of this kind, which involves public relations, should first be discussed with, and approved by, the counselor's immediate superior. If no recent studies have been made, the first one should cover the dropouts and graduates of the past five years unless a sample of several hundred can be obtained from more recent classes. A large sample is necessary in order to reveal clearly which occupations and employers have absorbed the largest numbers of former students.
Once made, the follow-up study should be repeated annually in order to discover changes when they appear. Each study should include, at least, all the dropouts and graduates of the past twelve months. Some schools follow up all former students at intervals of 1, 3, and 5 years after separation from school. Others prefer intervals of 1, 4, and 7 years, and still others like 1, 5, and 10.
High schools need to follow up their alumni after they have completed college and military or alternate service in order to find out where these former students got their first jobs. Without this information the vocational and educational guidance of prospective college students can be sadly unrealistic.
The follow-up study has two advantages over the community occupational survey as a means of learning what beginning jobs are likely to be available. First, it has no geographical limits; it goes wherever the former students have gone and thus reveals the true extent of the employment market with which the counselor must be concerned. Second, it reveals the kinds of jobs which dropouts and graduates are able to get in the open competition of the labor market. Employers may state, quite truthfully, that they frequently do have vacancies which could be filled by inexperienced young workers. With no intent to deceive, the employers may nevertheless not hire beginners when the vacancies occur if experienced workers are available at that time. Only the follow-up study reveals what kinds of jobs the beginners actually get.
If student participation is not feasible, the counselor may conduct the study himself. If no way can be found to communicate with former students, the counselor can get limited in-formation about them by asking the teachers and students who are still in school to report the nature and place of employment of any former students whom they know.
All that has been said above about students, dropouts, and graduates applies also to the clients of counselors who do not work in schools or colleges. Every counselor should know what has happened to his former clients. Every agency which has clients should make periodic follow-up studies of the persons it has served.
Thus vocational rehabilitation counselors, counselors in community vocational guidance and placement services, counseling psychologists in veterans' hospitals and in private practice all need to know what has be-come of their former clients. Only in this way can the counselor find out whether he has helped or hindered his client in the client's attempt to evaluate the probability that he will be able to find employment in the occupation of his choice.
