OTHER JOB TITLES
- Vocational counselor
- Career development specialist
- Job counselor
- Career management professional
GOALS AND DUTIES
Employment and career counselors assist clients in choosing and preparing for a career and in finding a suitable job. Career management professional is a popular title in the private sector firms; employment counselor is a title that's often associated with government service.
The basic duties of an employment counselor:
- Interviewing
- Testing
- Counseling
- Referral to other agencies
- Placement
Clients can come from any age group or employment background, and the counselor's duties naturally vary somewhat depending on the client's needs. The services that will benefit a young, single, recently discharged veteran may be of little use to a middle-aged steel worker who has a family and a mortgage. State agencies provide specialized services for groups such as veterans, youth, women, older workers, the disabled, rural residents, and the economically disadvantaged.
An employment counselor usually begins by interviewing the client in order to learn what skills, experience, and education the client can bring to an employer. The counselor may then determine that additional aptitude and interest tests are needed. The counselor reviews the results of these tests with the client and assists the client in identifying suitable occupations. The counselor may find that the client needs further education or training and then provide information on suitable programs and financial aid. Or the client may simply need help with job-seeking skills that can be developed in group sessions. The counselor may act as a leader for such a group or job club. In other cases, the client may need no more than a job referral or assistance with a resume. No matter where the client starts in relation to the world of work, the ultimate goal of client and counselor is placement in a specific job. Counselors then conduct follow-up interviews with former clients and their employers in order to learn the success of the placement.
Besides working on the clearly vocational concerns described above, these counselors also:
- Seek to reduce the psychological impact of unemployment
- Help people survive while unemployed—this might entail referring clients to other agencies or individual and group counseling sessions on subjects such as stress management and living on a reduced income.
Employment counseling requires knowledge of the work world as well as interviewing and counseling skills. The success of the counselor's office or agency depends in part on the counselor's relations with employers. The future will see more career centers for adults and more online job databases, in the continuing effort to match jobs to talent.
EMPLOYMENT AND OUTLOOK
Most employment counselors work for agencies of the state government that are largely supported by federal funds. The agency is usually called the Job Service, but other titles include the Employment Service and the Employment Security Agency. Counselors with the Job Service may either counsel full-time or spend half their time or more in such non-counseling activities such as interviewing, taking orders for job banks, administering tests, certifying program applicants, or leading job-search workshops.
Most private employment agencies employ few if any of these types of counselors because they are primarily concerned with rapidly placing individuals in jobs for which they have proven experience and not with career exploration. Besides the Job Service, the most likely employers are community agencies. In some cases, counselors in private practice specialize in employment concerns. A small but growing source of jobs has been the movement by large corporations to provide outplacement counseling to fired workers, especially at the executive level. The counselor may work directly for the corporation or more often, for a private firm that contracts with the large company to provide the outplacement services.
This trend is not expected to change. But funding decisions, which were once made by Congress, are now determined locally. In 1996, welfare reform legislation passed, with the effect of giving states more power over their welfare programs. The situation varies dramatically from state to state and even from city to city. It also changes every year, along with political conditions.
Employment is growing in the private sector, although employment lags behind the need for these services. The number of new positions will probably be relatively small in terms of the economy as a whole. One possible source of employment growth in the private sector is with firms that, under contract, provide services similar to those once provided by the government's Job Service.
Another possible source of employment is as a career development specialist with a corporation or large government agency.
The potential for private sector employment for counselors in career development is subject to dispute within the business community. At least one corporation hires only counseling psychologists with a doctorate for its program. Another one expresses reluctance to consider hiring people with any graduate degree from counselor education programs—the term counselor is viewed negatively. Businesses generally prefer to hire people with a degree in human relations development, in part because businesses are concerned that people trained in counselor education programs would be more interested in counseling individuals than in program management, which would be their primary duty. Whatever the reasons, career development programs in corporations are frequently administered by individuals who entered the corporate world after receiving undergraduate degrees and working in the corporation's human resources department.
Counselors are being hired by corporations and agencies, however, especially if they can show an understanding of business as demonstrated in undergraduate course work or familiarity with business gained through an internship dealing with corporate issues and served in a corporate setting. These positions are most appealing to those with an entrepreneurial spirit since the counselor must constantly sell the organization on the value of the service.
SALARY, BENEFITS, WORKING CONDITIONS
The median salary for employment and career counselors was $41,230 in 2017 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, US). The growth of this field is challenging to pin point, but it is hard to imagine a decline, since there are always people seeking employment at any given time.
Employment counselors who work for the state enjoy the usual benefits of state employees. Those who work for the private sector also receive benefits, although the benefits package might not be as generous.
ENTRY REQUIREMENTS AND CAREER LADDER
With fifty state agencies doing much of the hiring, there are fifty sets of entry requirements. In general, states seek people with a bachelor's degree in one of the behavioral sciences or with additional courses in counseling; relevant professional experience can usually be substituted for education. Usually, a person must pass an examination given by the state's civil service or merit hiring board. Many states hire college graduates as employment interviewers—counselors are then trained and chosen from among the interviewers already employed.
In other cases, states hire counselor trainees to begin with. To be considered for a promotion, a trainee or an interviewer may need to attend a graduate school program or an agency training program for counselors. A masters in counseling is now preferred. Other programs you can choose to advance your career include career facilitator (less than a master's, but at least 120 hours of classroom training) and at the upper end of the educational scale, some choose to pursue an M.B.A. in Human Resources with a career development specialization.
Only a few counselor education programs have the kind of emphasis sought by private industry for career development specialists. According to someone associated with these programs, however, the challenge facing graduates is less in proving their qualifications than in uncovering the jobs, because no central clearinghouse advertises these positions. In fact, almost all graduates of counselor education programs find positions in the private sector or with large government agencies.
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