Bridge those troubled waters
Whether you are in a rut or in a dilemma, career counsellors can suggest relevant possibilities, writes Julia Stirling.
REDUNDANCY, returning to work after a long absence, or simply wanting a radical career change are among the many good reasons for developing career management skills. Very few Aussie workers have the luxury of job security, and developing career management skills can help resolve the uncertainty that comes with the rise of part-time work, casualisation, downsizing, and more recently, new IR laws.
An increase in enquiries to the Career Development Association of Australia website suggests more people are seeing career counselling as a solution to career management. So what do career counsellors do, what can you expect from them, and how many sessions do you need to obtain positive outcomes?
"Career counsellors help people understand themselves, their motivation, skills, values and interests, they work together with their client to discover how this understanding can be used to find an appropriate career,'' says Anita Cyngler, a counsellor for over 20 years. "Career counsellors help with any work-related issue such as career change. They assist with accessing the hidden job market, resumes, letters of application, responses to key selection criteria and interview preparation. In addition they often help with salary negotiation, problems with managers, colleagues, and staff. They also help people make study choices.''
Cyngler says people are far more sophisticated than 20 years ago, and much more willing to invest in their career. Some will just come for a one-off session. They may need help with a job interview or a salary negotiation. Other clients will take longer, and one of the challenges for counsellors is to achieve positive outcomes within a client's budget. Diana Edwards is a careers counsellor and registered psychologist. She has been working in private practice since 1990, and since 2004 has also been working on various contracts with Melbourne's La Trobe University Course and Careers Centre. She usually sees clients for two or three sessions.
"For some adults who are in fairly complex situations there is a pressure to get a lot covered in a short space of time. It is always possible to work within a client's budget, but we have to negotiate clearly about what can realistically be achieved. It's still an area where people aren't quite sure what they can expect to get out of it; when it works really well it's invaluable, and people say in retrospect `I'd have paid $10,000 to get this sort of outcome','' she says.
Edwards has a wide client base, but says she is seeing many more school-age students and their families. ``The range of career choices has just blown out ... the range of tertiary courses, the range of pathways into work and training ... it's just sheer complexity.''
Part of what she does is to alleviate anxieties surrounding Year 12. "... You have to put that into perspective, and help people wind back some of that anxiety. Even if you don't get into your first career choice at age 18, that certainly is not the end of anything. That's one of the areas where career counselling is very satisfying, because you can make an enormous difference to families who are just overwhelmed with all this information. The complexity for actually applying for courses and how that all works is very daunting.''
Edwards says it's very important that the process be an empowering one, and that is where good counselling skills come in. She has worked with a lot of health professionals in the process of career change such as nurses, physiotherapists and podiatrists.
"Often these people think they have to throw it all away and start again, they might be burnt out, but there are lots of ways of taking some of what they know and adding a new skill base, like the podiatrist I'm thinking about who discovered health information management. It has to very much depend on that assessment of what their other core strengths are; and a lot of these options aren't known about. I guess that's the classic career counselling profile that people expect -- that there are some ideas they don't know about that are going to be right for them, and certainly that does regularly happen.
"A myotherapist I worked with ended up doing a graduate diploma in health promotion. She discovered this whole area of health promotion and that was perfect, but when she first came, she was saying, `maybe I should be an accountant, I love the health field, but I just can't stand what I'm doing any longer'.'' Edwards says it's much harder now to make a radical career change, because the market place expects credentials and experience. ``Sometimes you can do what I call the career two step, which means that you make one small change and consolidate. You might be working in customer service in the insurance industry, you might move to customer service in some sort of community service; change your industry, but not your role. The next step is to change your role in that new industry, but to change both at once is quite difficult. Sometimes you can plan a number of steps to make a radical change.''
Career change can take time and Edwards says it's important to be prepared for effort, and be patient. "One of the challenges in careers counselling is managing expectations without undermining what is possible; there has to be some realism. But there is so much at stake, so much to gain -- I often point out to clients that a small change in their work life can make a huge difference.''
The AACC is currently undergoing government regulation through the Career Industry Council of Australia, and member associations of CICA will phase in minimum standards by 2012.
Michael Hastings, postgraduate careers program co-ordinator at Melbourne's RMIT, says ``the counselling perspective that we teach is very much one that is about the idea that you sustain a conversation; that careers is a story in someone's life. In the course we are teaching a narrative approach to career counselling, which is related to the idea that careers is an unfolding story, and that careers is about development over time -- it's about looking at your resources at any point and making the most of opportunities.''
Find the right counsellor
ONE of the best ways to find a career counsellor is through the Australian Association of Career Counsellors' website. It has 1300 members, and the site can locate accredited counsellors by area. Another way is by referral, or through the Yellow Pages.
Career Counsellor Diana Edwards says she speaks to prospective clients for up to 15 minutes on the phone before a decision is needed about whether they want counselling from her. She says it's important for people to ask any counsellor they approach what their qualifications are, but the key area to talk about is what kind of process is involved.
"Some people don't want my process, they want something more detached, or they want the battery of tests where they don't have to get too involved,'' she says.
Edwards says when people make enquiries they should be able to speak to the counsellor themselves, because it's important to feel comfortable with the particular person you are receiving counselling from.
Michael Hastings, careers educator at RMIT, says ``often a lot of careers practitioners are just into assessment, they'll sit down and pretty quickly give you a test. That's partly their background and partly the demand for that in the public arena. People think that's what careers practitioners do, so it's easy enough to find someone who'll do that; but for someone to give you ongoing counselling ... it's a trickier thing, you have to conduct a fairly wide search to find someone who suits you.''
By Julia Stirling, The Weekend Australian, June 25, 2006.
For more useful tips read the other stories in the Job Hunting Advice section and Ask Kate Column.
