Careers Counselling BPS202

Course Structure: Careers Counselling BPS202

1. Introduction: Scope & Nature of the Industry
2. Nature of Careers: What is a career, what makes it successful
3. Careers Advice Resources: Brochures, Publications, Web Sites
4. Services: Where can people get help (Social Services, Work Experience, Education)
5. Developing Counselling Skills
6. Conducting a Counselling Session (& referring people on elsewhere).
7. Counselling Students and School Leavers (with little work experience)
8. Counselling Adults (inexperienced or facing career change)
9. Job Prospecting: How to find work, resumes, etc
10. Nurturing and Growing a career once it has started

 Aims: Careers Counselling BPS202

• Identification of people and organisations which offer career advice or support and the services they offer
• Improved ability to distinguish successful from unsuccessful careers, and to prepare for anticipated changes in the workplace.
• Skills that will enhance your ability to guide others in the establishment or development of a career.
• Ability to plan and execute an effective Counselling Session
• Understanding and strategies for dealing with the needs of inexperienced young people.
• Identifying and meeting the needs of inexperienced adults or those facing career change.
• Understanding of how and where to find employment in the job market.
• Appreciation of the need to nurture and grow a career and plan for change.

What you will be doing in this Course

• Undertake research into the scope and nature of employment services and service providers in your region or locality;
• Research a career area to identify the kind of work involved, requirements, who offers it, trends etc.;
• Role play a counselling session to practise and evaluate your skills in helping a client with a issue;
• Conduct research to improve your understanding of what careers counselling entails.
• Plan a careers counselling session, including the session goal, timeframe, and anticipated issues;
• Discuss career concerns with young people who are leaving or have recently left secondary school;
• Discuss with adults their experiences of career change;
• Plan strategies to assist young and adult clients deal with common and important identified issues.
• What is Involved in Careers Counselling?
• Careers Counselling involves more than just finding work for people.

Among other things, Careers Counselling may involve helping people:

• Identify the best job for their skills and interests
• Find any job to meet their personal and financial needs
• Find a better or more appropriate job for their situation
• Achieve job satisfaction through appropriate choices
• Plan and cope with career changes
• Better adapt to the workplace
• Improve their potential for advancement in the workplace
• Identify new career possibilities when circumstances change.

To be able to assist a client in each or any of these processes, a Careers Counsellor must be aware of:

• The diverse nature of employment opportunities
• The requirements for success in different types of jobs
• Reasons that people hire and fire employees
• Workplace conditions including contract law, industrial relations systems, health and safety issues, ethics - useful contacts among employers, government departments, funding bodies, professional associations, industry experts, etc
• Factors that hinder or promote a person's job-seeking effectiveness
• Trends in the local job market.
• A good Careers Counsellor must be impartial and objective.

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the Academy, marked by the Academy's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.