- Immediate
employment
Some consider it important to choose an occupation that will lead to
immediate employment, rather than seek for longer and perhaps fail,
or get involved in further training and study to increase their own
chances.People who have clear answers to the problems listed above will find it easier to make
decisions regarding their career; this means free choice of personal values and not under
external pressure, knowledge of the implication of their choices (leading to renouncement
or advantages) acting in order to put them into practice.
Kapes, Mastie and Whitfield (1994) state that the results of an examination carried out
with a view to career counselling can be used for guidance, to discover and certify
competence, to support decisions and career development. At the same time, with this
approach, the objective of career counselling is no longer finding an occupation that
should best fit the client, but occupational families or even large occupational fields, since
the person is believed apt to learn continually, to adapt to new work situations and to be
involved in the development of their own competence. In this logic, we need to include a
new stage of counselling: that of “planning the development of a career and its change”
(NAEP, 1971). At present, most counsellors reject the idea that for a certain client, “there
is only one suitable occupation” and opt to counsel their clients to make “broader
decisions”, to stay open to several work opportunities or “alternative careers”, invite them
to self-knowledge and personal information quest first and then guide them towards
“flexible decisions”.
The justified “transfer” of the career decision from the counsellor to the client is the most
rational professional behaviour of the counsellor.
In relation to this process, Kapes, Mastie and Whitfield (1994) set a few “career
development principles”:
- career development is a lifelong process, a succession of choices; these
changes concerning choices and the focus of professional interest are
generated by the changes that appear both at the personal level (due to
education, training, experience, access to new information), as well as work
environment (economic, social, technological progress); - decision-making and planning the development of one’s career is a process
that can be learned and applied throughout one’s lifetime; for this it is
necessary to complete stages such as: problem identification, gathering
information, formulating alternatives, evaluating options and developing
action plans; - in career choice multiple factors are involved: interests, aptitudes, knowledge
acquired in the school and beyond, skills, needs, values, self-image, other
subjective factors;