Are you new to career counseling for school students?
Alternatively, are you an experienced career counselor, wanting to add more value?
In either case, you must know how you can provide benefit to your clients. This article provides an insight into many parameters that you must be aware of, in order to provide quality advice to your clients.
Who should read this?
This article is for career counselors for school students.
You may be working with students below class 3rd, up to class 7th, between 8th to 12th and any combination.
For senior students, you might be helping to choose, career, streams and higher education.
You might also be counseling students who tried NEET or IIT and could not succeed.
Alternatively, who want are confused in choosing higher education post class 12th?
For junior students, you might want to help parents become aware of their cognitive abilities.
You might be guiding parents on child self-awareness.
This blog is for career counselors who want to offer authentic and practical career advice to school students and their parents.
Are you still interested? Ready to read further?
Understanding Career Excellence Model (CEM)
How do you define career excellence for your client? Alternatively, a successful career for the client?
Is it when the client can perform well in career?
Alternatively, when she shall adjust well in her job?
Alternatively, when shall be highly motivated?
In fact, a successful, flourishing career is when the client shall adjust well in the job, perform exceedingly well and shall remain highly motivated.
Our career excellence model is based on above philosophy.
You must design your career counseling practice to help client identify such careers and progress towards them.
Career Exploration Process
Did you provide sufficient self-awareness to your client?
Was it in accordance to career excellence model?
Does your client have enough career landscape awareness?
Does she know how to be career ready?
Career exploration is a systematic process to address these queries.
Once you master career excellence model, you should master career exploration process.
Career Counseling fundamentals for students between class 8th & 12th
Review the Career Excellence Model.
Given below are key ingredients of CEM, adapted to students in higher classes.
Please read them thoroughly.
Also, keep in mind that Career building of a child is collective family endeavor.
Child self-awareness and parental whole-heated acceptance and support are key influences.
Child self-awareness components include
| Component | Affected Parameter |
| Interest of Child | Motivation |
| Values of Child | Motivation |
| Personality of Child | Adjustment |
| Cognitive abilities of Child | Performance |
| Other critical abilities of Child | Performance |
Different components of Self-awareness
Additional influencing or enabling parameters include
| Component | Affected Parameter |
| Learning preferences of the child | Strategies to gain knowledge in most effective manner |
| Career decision making ability of child | Relevant information and belief in self to make suitable career decisions |
Other critical parameters
Have you understood these concepts well?
Can you explain these to your clients these succinctly?
Have you thoroughly understood their correlation to a profession or a title?
Career Awareness and Readiness components
Are you aware of the industry aligned career clusters?
Within these, do you understand various pathways? Careers within those pathways?
Careers? Roles?
Do you know how to identify required streams for a career? How to identify higher education needs?
Do you have college database? Qualifying exams awareness? Information about fees & competition?
A thorough understanding of these is necessary to provide satisfactory career counseling for the 8th-12th classes.
Career Counseling fundamentals for students between class 3rd & 7th
These students have different requirement. In addition, different environment.
Parents are decision makers, key influences and resource providers.
In these classes, students are not still concerned about finding colleges or qualifying exams.
They are more concerned in exploration process.
Exploration of intelligence. Exploration of interests
They are still tender. Therefore, awareness of their well-being is also important.
As a career counselor, you must master these concepts.
Child’s well-being components
Emotional well-being is so important. Without this, children cannot flourish.
They cannot realize their potential. They cannot focus on studies.
As a counselor, do you understand child emotions, activity patterns, their social habits, and their relationship with other children?
Understand these concepts. Get trained. Find tools that help you identify these.
Interest, intelligence and preference components
Interest is equally important. It is a motivator. It brings focus. Willingness to put effort.
Are you equipped to identify child interests? Can you map these to possible careers?
Intelligence brings capacity. It enables child to gain competence. So, interest is driver and intelligence is enabler.
Can you assess child intelligence? As a counselor, do you have right tools? Are you trained to interpret results?
What about learning preferences? How does the child learn best?
Can you identify? Can you suggest best strategies?
As a student career counselor for this class bracket, you must master above components.
Get trained.
In addition, get the best assessment tools.
Student counseling between class 1st & 2nd
At this stage, some aspects of personality start forming. Understand these.
Interests are not well formed. They shall change
Child emotional well-being is important.
Child intelligence is important.
As student counselor for this group, you must master these concepts.
Find tools for assessment of intelligence, child well-being and stable personality traits.
This is a stage for formation. Child is evolving. It is the time to understand innate capacities.
Channel these meaningfully.
Understand limitations – some of which may have impact on career adjustment.
Summing it up
Student career counseling is a huge responsibility.
Parents are putting their trust in you. You are guiding their children.
You must deliver!
For this, you must gain expertise.
You should be trained.
You must have right tools.
You must have information database.
Your training and tool must differentiate between different age groups.
Analysis and recommendations must be customized.
Start slowly! Practice well!
You shall be an outstanding student career counselor!
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