Why is career counseling important?
From experimenting with different career paths to upgrading your job, here are the 12 answers to the question, “What are some helpful reasons career counseling is important?”
- Grants Unbiased, Experience-Based Advice
- Overcomes Barriers
- Saves Time Trying to Find Your Next Opportunity
- Aids in Discovering Who You Are at Your Professional Core
- Provides the Job Search With Context
- Accelerates Your Career Development
- Enables Deep Self Awareness
- Acts as Self Care
- Provides Accountability
- Gives You a Career BFF
- Opens Up Doors of Opportunities
- Takes Your Career to the Next Level
Grants Unbiased, Experience-Based Advice
Career counseling is important because challenges at work or in a job search can be very personal and receiving unbiased, experience-based advice is imperative. Working with a professional can also help someone work through their lay-off, job search frustrations, toxic workplace, or lack of career satisfaction without fear of judgment.
While family and friends are helpful to vent to sometimes, their advice comes layered with, what I call, “the best form of bias,” because they love you. Period. They are necessary cheerleaders, don’t get me wrong, but as your career strategist, I don’t give you advice to make you feel better. My job is to help balance the conversation and provide you with direction so we can build an action plan to move you forward.
Krystal Hicks , Founder & Career Strategist, JOBTALK, LLC
Overcomes Barriers
Career counselors are there to help individuals identify and work through what is holding them back in making forward career progress.
It can be a mental barrier like imposter syndrome, confidence, or self-doubt. But it can also be a skill barrier, such as a specific technical, soft, or business.
With the right assessments and coaching, the counselor can quickly help an individual identify what is holding them back and determine the next best steps to take to get back on track in making forward progress.
Jaime Chambron , CEO, Career Agility System
Saves Time Trying to Find Your Next Opportunity
Did you know that your life is likely to be only 4000 weeks? Career counseling is important because it can save you months or years of your life so you can reach your goals faster by speeding up your transition to the right next career chapter.
If you are unhappy with your work, chances are you want to work with different people, or you want to achieve more status or earn a lot more money. When you work with an experienced coach or counselor, you gain from all their experience.
Instead of figuring out viable options for yourself, you can put tried, tested, and proven approaches to work immediately to earn promotions, accelerate job searches, switch sectors or earn more money. Seek a career counselor with experience in your sector and with plenty of testimonials from delighted clients.
Sam Waterfall , Executive Career Coach, Obvious Candidate
Aids in Discovering Who You Are at Your Professional Core
More than ever, career coaching is the game-changer one needs to stand out in a crowded career and job market. Aiding the discovery of who you are at your professional core, and what makes you the most desirable employee.
This helps you distinguish between your daily work tasks and your value-added characteristics, and leads you to confident communications about how you will contribute and succeed. Together, coaches can transform you into a candidate for promotions and other career opportunities.
Mitch Lederman , Career Strategist & Advisor, CareerCoach.Ledermaninc.com
Provides the Job Search With Context
Career counseling provides context, something that’s often sorely missing from a job search. It’s tough for any job seeker to know if they’re doing enough or too much and if they’re spending energy on high-quality activities or low-yield work that gives the illusion of progress.
By working with a career coach, a job seeker will gain not just advice on how to optimize their resume or reach out to a networking contact, but they’ll gain a valuable sense of their progress and what are the most effective ways to spend their energy.
Job searching is stressful, and who has time to spare? Career counseling can help you both clarify your career goals and reach those goals more quickly with less stress.
Pat Fligge , Director of Temple Professional Network, Temple University
Accelerates Your Career Development
Career counseling, when done right, provides a space of motivation, support, and encouragement for you to move forward in your career.
Take a moment to think of a time that another person’s insights or questions helped you move forward. Could you have moved as quickly on your own? Try this: ask someone in your field whom you respect, a question that you have pondered regarding the next step in your career.
Would they offer something new for you to think about? Was asking them valuable to you? A career counselor can take you even further with their focus and experience. Give it a try!
Ann Vanino , Owner, Ann Vanino Coaching
Enables Deep Self Awareness
I have seen many people falling for their friend’s or parent’s career advice and ending up with disappointment and frustration. The reason for that is turning a blind eye to our inner voice coming from our self-awareness.Career coaches would never let it happen. With a smart career coach, they’ll help you find who you are, what you want, and what the excellence in you looks like, and then take you through steps that will turn your vision into reality.
Dorota Walters , Founder, D. Walters Consulting
Acts as Self-Care
Career counseling can serve as an act of “self-care.” Similar to the importance of getting annual check-ups, it is important for individuals to “check-in” on themselves, especially in relation to our careers (and our ideals of work).
We spend most of our lives working, and it can be very transformative for people to take the time necessary to take part in career counseling to provide themselves with self-care (resulting in opportunities for reflection, perspective, and enhanced direction).
Career counseling can be an important difference in one’s career and life, providing a (sometimes rare) opportunity for an individual to care for and focus on themselves in relation to their career, as well as other intersecting identities and goals.
Mary Snowden-Lorence , Founder, Career Consultant, & Coach, My Career Priority
Provides Accountability
Many of my clients quickly grow weary of the job search process. Online applications, networking calls, resume updates, rejections—they’re all part of the process, but doing them alone doesn’t have to be.
Career coaches are incredible accountability partners. Often, having a weekly or bi-weekly meeting with a coach provides the structure and accountability necessary to build a strong job search and not grow weary in the face of rejection or setbacks.
Many of my clients report that accountability was one of the most influential elements of the coaching process for them.
Kelsey Wat , Career Coach, TGIM Careers
Gives You a Career BFF
Think about why you pick up the phone and text or call your BFF. Think about the results and feelings you get after spending time with that BFF, likely someone who knows you almost better than yourself. You know you can share honestly and wholeheartedly, and can trust their insights and guidance to be sound and supportive.
Career counseling done well is taking those BFF results and supportive experiences but layering them with expert-level professional guidance. They really see you and know you, and they are experts in modern-day job search strategies.
This combined helps level you up by showing you your quirks and awesomeness while providing tailored guidance like how to tell your truth in a resume, social job searching, LinkedIn networking, nailing interviews, working with recruiters, offer management, and salary negotiations.
Anna Morgan , Founder, CareerBFF
Opens Up Opportunities
Career counseling is essential because it opens up doors of opportunity that could otherwise be more difficult to access. With career counseling, you often get the personalized help that you need in order to move forward to the next step, wherever you might be on your career journey.
This might include resume workshopping, interview preparation, and so much more. Finally, career counseling also often provides you with a thought partner to work through the most difficult obstacles with.
Anna Treesara , Founder & Teacher Career Coach, Tutoring Tree, LLC
Takes Your Career to the Next Level
Elite sports people still engage coaches when they are already on top of their game. Nothing beats working with an expert who knows how to get things done quicker and better. Someone who can help you find a better way for you. Most people struggle in their careers. They don’t know how or when to plan for the next step, can’t create a resume that sets them apart from others, don’t know how to access all routes into the job market, or don’t know how to prepare for and win a job interview. Those who engage a career coach do. You can become the business equivalent of an elite sports person. The value is incalculable—and the benefit is immeasurable.
Bernard Pearce , Executive Career Transition Specialist, Career Inspirations
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