Why hire a career counselor?
Times are tough. Most of us are looking for ways to cut unnecessary expenses, so why would we want to spend money on a career counselor? They can be expensive (typical rates are between $100 and $175 and hour). They can also be difficult to find. And, what should we expect to get for our money?
Lately I have stumbled upon a number of articles addressing these questions.
On February 5, 2009, Roseanne Colletti (huffingtonpost.com), asks two important questions in her post—Unemployment is Hard Work:
#1 “Should you hire a career counselor?”
#2 “How do you find a good one?”
Colletti writes, “An experienced and competent career counselor can keep you focused and direct your efforts to fields that are not only within your reach but have viable openings.” She goes on to warn, “An inexperienced and incompetent career counselor can waste your time and money.” So, buyers beware. As with all professions, there are some good and some not so good career counselors.
A place Colletti suggests you visit to start your search for a knowledgeable career counselor is by visiting one of the career counseling professional organizations, such as the National Career Development Association’s website. While this is a good place to start, it is not the only source for finding competent career counselors.
We often find career counselors like we find other professionals—by asking people we know if they know a “good” career counselor. This makes sense when you think about it. When choosing a career counselor, you want to work with someone that someone that you can trust and good place to start is by asking others whom they trust.
Once you have a few names, you are ready to take the next step, which is to interview the counselors to find out more about their services— and perhaps more importantly, to see if the two of you click. And, make sure that when you chat, that the counselor is doing more of the listening.
Taylor Lindstrom, writing for SFgate.com (Staying Ahead of the Curve) shares her thoughts about why hiring a career counselor might make sense. “ The value of a career counselor is that right away the person who is without a job gets powerful structured help in doing all the right things. People on their own tend to wander, procrastinate, shut down, surf the Web, says Littlestone. When they go to a career counselor, there’s someone who knows what they’re supposed to be doing, who will make a plan, check in.”
Being accountable and having deadlines is often helpful.
Career counselors are not magicians. We cannot change the economy or attitudes, but what we can do is to give people hope, and show them some ways to move forward. In times like these it is rather nice to not have to “go solo”.