To begin with, though, you may well be wondering what a career counseling job even entails. Your first duty (and essentially the primary purpose of the job) will be to take information that you are given about a person and use it to help the person find the job that is right for them. You will take into account the person's strengths, experiences, and any certifications that they are looking into getting or already have. If you're working with a college student or a high school student, you'll also be taking a good look into what their finances are and what they can afford to pay to further their education. For instance, you'll need to help them decide if they can afford out-of-state tuition or if they should stay in state for at least a few years. Depending on the scope of the job, you may also be asked to help arrange transfers and to figure out what is called for when you're looking at getting two curricula to sync up with one another as a student pursues a single degree at two different institutions.
You'll also find that there are a number of different methods by which this job can be handled. In some cases, working with career aptitude tests will be preferable. You may have a part in scoring such tests, and you would then discuss them with the person that you are working with. Naturally, you would need to be intimately familiar with the test in question and what it all means, and from there, you may well find that choosing the right path for your client can be very simple. Getting the right kind of career counseling is something that can mean a lot when one is in a place where this kind of counseling is necessary, and so you may end up having a very profound effect on the given person's life.
A good career counselor is also someone who knows that their advice might not always be taken. When you give someone advice on their career, it is up to them whether they accept or reject it. Your role is essentially a supportive one, and many counselors find themselves in a position where they need to decide whether nor not to help someone move toward a career that they feel is inappropriate. This is something that many counselors find that they have a difficult time with, but it is also something that can be very important to the individuals you counsel.
Depending on the scope of your job, you may also be put in a position to pilot various programs that will allow the people you're working with to get the jobs that they're after in the industry of their choice. You'll probably discover that this requires that you take some time to really consider what your options are going to be when it comes to the creation of this sort of program. You'll also discover that there are different kinds of work that you will need to be conversant with. You need to know what each industry will require of the people whom you are helping, and you will need to explain a lot of this to those you help. There are plenty of people, after all, who are only interested in a given career because they have not done the research.
If you're looking to move forward in your own career, take a good look at what the options are going to be. Think about what a career in career counseling could do for you, and what you can do in order to move forward and get the right kind of training for it. Ultimately, if you want to make sure that you're in a career that will make a difference, you may well discover that counseling is a great career for you. Take some time, though, to really consider what your tolerance for people really is, and how much you will get from helping them. This can make a large difference at the end of the day, so make sure that you understand exactly how helpful you're going to be.
