Counselor Educators & Researchers Archives
Reimagining Career Counselor Curriculum for Underserved Populations
By Natalie Gerlach
This article examines how socioeconomic challenges and mental health issues impact career development for those with limited resources. It highlights the critical role of career counselors in helping low-income individuals align their careers with passions and addresses the need for targeted programs and further research to bridge gaps in support.
Complete Article >A Review of “Essays Celebrating John L. Holland’s Autobiography and Contributions to Career Theory, Research, and Practice: A Festschrift”
By Taelar Bybee
Florida State Open Publishing has released Essays Celebrating John L. Holland’s Autobiography and Contributions to Career Theory, Research, and Practice: A Festschrift. The Festschrift celebrates the man behind the RIASEC theory. This review of the Festschrift, written by a graduate student, examines human experience in science, the impact and legacy of Holland, and applications of the Festschrift in graduate coursework. [Eds. Note - this book review originally appeared in the web magazine in 2023. Because of its significance to today's readers, we are re-running the book review now.]
Complete Article >Bringing Theories to Life in the Classroom: Chaos Theory of Careers
By Barbara Parker-Bell, Nathaniel O. Brown, and Jonathon Wiley
Chaos Theory of Careers is the focus of this article in the “Bringing Theories to Life in the Classroom” series. Chaos Theory of Careers (CTC) helps clients embrace unforeseen developments in their career journey by readying them for unpredictability. This article offers counselor educators creative methods to facilitate a better understanding of CTC and support students in learning some of the core principles of this approach.
Complete Article >A Family Resource Binder Project: Boosting Career Development in Counselor Education
By Dilian Rolins
The article offers Counselor Educators practical recommendations for improving career counseling for students with disabilities. A Family Resource Binder assignment developed by counselors-in-training offers actionable strategies that can enhance career counseling practices and training programs. Practical guidance for implementing the assignment is included.
Complete Article >Practical Activities Using Person-Environment Correspondence Theory in Career Counseling Courses
By Chaiqua A. Harris & Diana Charnley
Person Environment Correspondence (PEC) Theory provides a framework for working with clients experiencing career dissatisfaction. Exploring creative, evaluative, analytical, and applicable PEC activities may help budding practitioners. This article continues the series that offers counselor educators strategies for teaching theories in an engaging manner.
Complete Article >Grief and Job Loss: Integrating Grief into Career Counseling Curriculum to Prepare Future Counselors
By Jen Hartman and Nathaniel Brown
Job loss and grief remain understudied topics in counseling programs. Counselor educators can integrate evidence-based grief education into career counseling courses using constructivist pedagogy and the dual-process model which provides a framework for understanding how people cope with grief. Suggested activities facilitate the co-construction of learning while emphasizing intersectionality.
Complete Article >Bringing Theories to Life in the Classroom: Super’s Life Span Life Space Theory
By Lisa Cardello, Barbara Parker-Bell, and Hongshan Shao
Donald Super was renowned for his developmental approach, which emphasized the dynamic interaction between individuals and their environments across the lifespan. His theory made significant contributions to career development theory and practice. As part of a series on practical strategies for counselor educators, this article focuses on introducing Super’s life span and life space theory and providing teaching strategies.
Complete Article >Bringing Theories to Life in the Classroom: Career Construction Theory
By Lisa Cardello and Jonathan Wiley
Career Construction Theory (CCT) posits that individuals construct their careers through subjective interpretation of experiences, integrating personal traits, life themes, and social influences to shape their vocational identities. Innovative teaching strategies are offered to support counselor educators in preparing students to learn core principles of CCT and apply the theory.
Complete Article >Practical Activities Using Holland's Theory in Career Counseling Courses
By Diana Charnley & Regina Gavin Williams
Holland’s theory is one of the most utilized career development theories. Experiential activities applying Holland’s theory can be essential learning tools within counselor education. This article shares two activities implemented in career counseling courses, the Career Interest Party and Holland Guess Who. Both activities may be implemented with graduate students and clients.
Complete Article >Cultivating Career Counseling Excitement through Interactive Arts-Based Methods
By Barbara Parker-Bell
Educators teaching graduate career development courses frequently experience the challenge of engaging students who may undervalue the role of careers in the well-being and life span of their future clients. In these situations, interactive art-based teaching methods can be the catalyst for cultivating students’ career development excitement and competencies.
Complete Article >Bringing Theories to Life in the Classroom: Starting with the Psychology of Working Theory
By Galaxina Wright and Chaiqua A. Harris
Teaching and assessing theories within career counseling courses is often associated with strain among instructors. The NCDA 2023 Career Educator Academy (CEA) is developing a series of articles for Career Convergence focused on teaching career counseling. This article is the first in the series and focuses on innovative and practical strategies for teaching specific career counseling theories in an effective and engaging manner.
Complete Article >Life Design and Playful Approaches: A Way to Empower Individuals in an Unstable World
By Aude Poriau
In an unstable world, playful approaches and life design provide a dynamic, personalized and empowering solution to help individuals manage their career. This also leads career counselor educators to question their posture and the tools used to enable clients to find their own answers in a specific context.
Complete Article >Vital Role of Career Counselors in Engaging Men in Mental Health Treatment
By Meredith Montgomery
Research has long supported that career and mental health are interrelated and should be considered together in treatment. Societal norms for men encourage exploration and growth through work rather than emotional discourse. As a result, career counselors are in a unique position to positively influence men’s engagement in counseling services. Counselor educators can share these three strategies with students as they prepare to assist male clients.
Complete Article >Addressing Cultural Competency in Counselors: The Photovoice Project
By Melissa (Missy) Wheeler and Janelle Cox
Counselor educators are ethically responsible to teach cultural content, self-awareness, and perspective-taking, as well as advocacy for clients. Addressing career barriers using Photovoice projects within the career counseling course can increase knowledge of a client’s identity and advocacy efforts. An overview of the course project, with examples of photos used, will be included in this article for counselor educators.
Complete Article >Expressive Arts Intervention for a Career Counseling Course
By Marja Humphrey and Carolyn Thorpe
Many counselors-in-training do not foresee specializing in career counseling. However, the CACREP requirement for the master’s degree includes a career counseling and development course. This article describes how this course can be taught with an emphasis on career as life and details the creative interventions that can be used. Student responses to this course and implications for counselor educators are highlighted, with the option to mimic this course at other universities.
Complete Article >Art Therapy and Career Counseling
Book Review by Lisa Severy
We all have textbooks that we’ve grown to love and stick with as a resource in support of our courses. This new book by Parker-Bell and Osborn provides a thorough and innovative introduction to understanding, assessing, and supporting ethical strategies in both career counseling and art therapy. It could, and should, be a textbook in either field.
Complete Article >Group Career Counseling: Practices and Principles (2nd Edition)
Book Review by Jessica Caolo
This is a comprehensive group career counseling book that career services professionals can adapt to their practice and work settings. Editor's Note: this article originally appear in Career Convergence in 2015.
Complete Article >Preparing Trauma-Informed Career Counselors: Suggestions for Counselor Educators
By Lisa Cardello
Trauma can have a negative and long-lasting impact on career development. Counselor educators play an important role in preparing the next generation of career development professionals to approach career work with a trauma-informed lens, thus creating a safe and supportive environment for future clients affected by trauma.
Complete Article >Preparing Career Counselors to Aid Future Clients with Job Search
By Galaxina Wright
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the involuntary unemployment rate in March 2020 and The Great Resignation, our society has redefined its views and roles throughout the world of work. Career counselor educators are obligated to develop an increased understanding of how to expand career counselors-in-training (CITs) competencies related to job search.
Complete Article >Explore, Plan, Create, Practice, and Reflect: A Practical Assignment for a Career Counseling Course
By Angie Smith
Teaching career counseling is an energizing endeavor. It offers opportunities for personal and professional growth for each student. One way to integrate career planning into the course is through an assignment entitled “Preparing for Employment”. It enables students to link the course to career goals and future aspirations. Eds. Note - this article originally appeared in the web magazine in 2016. Because of its significance to today's readers, we are re-running it now.
Complete Article >Promoting Change for Black Female Counselor Educators Through the Use of the Kaleidoscope Career Model
By Natasha Barnes and Kenya Johns
The efforts of Black female counselor educators are not always acknowledged or valued in the profession. Using the Kaleidoscope Career Model can not only assist Black female counselor educators in understanding their own career paths, but it can also assist non-Black colleagues with understanding how to best support and retain this population in the profession.
Complete Article >The Counselor Educator Academy: Promoting Best Practices in Teaching Career Counseling
By Melinda M. Gibbons
The NCDA Counselor Educator Academy (CEA) supports faculty and instructors teaching graduate level career counseling courses. This article provides a brief history of the CEA, an overview of activities, and ways to become involved.
Complete Article >Bridging the Gap: From Career Counseling Theory to Practice
Tiffany P. Brooks, Yas Djadali Hardaway, Marian Higgins, & Angela Weingartner
Counselor educators often seek ways to demonstrate theoretical application of career theories. A group of counselor educators share their development of a video series featuring counselors applying six theories while in session with a client. The videos may serve as supplemental material for teaching career theories in career counseling courses.
Complete Article >Want to Teach a Social Justice Course? Teach Career Counseling
By Melissa Fickling
Graduate training programs in counseling often offer stand-alone courses in career and multicultural counseling. Viewing the career counseling course as a social justice course from which to build advocacy knowledge, skills, and action may be a way to increase student engagement, as well as better address complex client needs.
Complete Article >Using Tools We May Not Know We Have: Career Agency as a Resiliency Factor
By Lucy Parker-Barnes, Suzanne Degges-White, David Walker, Scott Wickman, Jesse Linneman, Courtney Rowley, Robert Giansante, and Noel McKillip
Ideas for counselor educators to teach about career agency as a resiliency factor are described. A recent study, which supports career agency as a resiliency factor in the face of classism, is also briefly explained. Concluding ideas to foster career agency in both client sessions and counseling classrooms are also described.
Complete Article >Teaching Career Development: A Primer for Instructors and Presenters 2nd Edition
Book Review By Judy Ettinger
This publication is a resource for those who are teaching career development in a formal classroom setting or through short-term workshops or informal presentations. Osborn provides insights and strategies that will help you effect changes in knowledge, skills and attitudes of your audience. [Eds. Note - this book review originally appeared in the web magazine in 2016. Because of its significance to today's readers, we are re-running the book review now.]
Complete Article >Using Career Values to Help Counseling Students Determine Their Best Fit
By Heidi L. Henry and Naomi Timm-Davis
Job satisfaction is higher whenever counselors’ career values match the values expressed in their occupational environments. To increase future job satisfaction and reduce burnout and turnover in professional counselors, counselor educators can help counseling students explore their career values through the use of career values card sorts.
Complete Article >Teaching Aptitude Assessment in Career Counseling Courses
By Greta A. Davis
Avoidance of the use of aptitude tests is often based on concerns related to cultural bias in test development, extensive administrative time requirements, inequitable access and high costs. Historical concerns about aptitude assessments are reviewed in relationship to the relatively new YouScience assessment. Counselor educators are encouraged to reconsider their view of aptitude testing.
Complete Article >Intentionally Integrating Career Counseling Research, Practice, and Activities into Counseling Courses
By Jacqueline J. Peila-Shuster and Angie C. Smith
Counselor educators strive to ensure future counselors gain a broad base of knowledge and skills. Keeping the “career course” separate from other counseling courses does a disservice to students and their future clientele. The NCDA Counselor Educator Academy created a resource to help counselor educators infuse career concepts into all the CACREP core areas. The authors of this article share sample activities and resources and encourage interested readers to access the complete guide.
Complete Article >Career Counseling Active-Duty: Bridging the Experience Gap through Credentialing
By Jacob Dodderidge
Career counseling educators provide resources to personnel within military bases around the world. With deployments, stress, and a lack of time, many service members are unaware of resources available to them while they serve. This is where civilian counseling educators play an important role.
Complete Article >Career Development Influencers: Social Media as an Opportunity
By Autumn Cabell
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. continue to rise in popularity throughout the world. Though there are pros and cons to engaging with social media, career development professionals, including counselor educators, can leverage social media platforms to fit their needs and share their expertise with large audiences.
Complete Article >Embodied Empathy: An Appeal to (Re)Connect through Felt Sense and Mindfulness Practice
By Tegan J Reeves
As we educate and supervise a generation of mental health professionals who will start their careers in the aftermath of collective trauma, it is increasingly important to help our students understand empathy. In this article, I discuss the embodied intersection of affect, vagal-tone, and mindfulness - offering an evidence base and practices that counselor educators will find valuable.
Complete Article >Creating Collaborative Assignments in Online Courses
By David Dietrich
Effective online career counseling courses depend on the successful engagement of students. Group assignments that are collaborative, rather than cooperative, require some effort on the part of the instructor to design and evaluate. The learning achieved and satisfaction of both student and instructor may be worth the effort.
Complete Article >Our Lives with a Theory: Reflections on John Holland’s New Autobiography
By Carley Peace and Deb Osborn
In writing his autobiography, John Holland hoped to provide “a personal account of [his] research experience that would be helpful for students and new researchers” (p. 40). In this article, a graduate student and a professor describe how this behind-the-scenes look at Holland’s life and work enhanced their understandings of RIASEC theory and provided professional inspiration.
Complete Article >The Intersection of Mental Health and Career Support: The Roles of Counselor Educators
By Cassandra Hirdes and Lia D. Falco
Counselor educators are in a unique position to support their students as they encounter ongoing challenges related to COVID-19. Connecting students to proper campus resources and continuing to support their career trajectories are important as students face mental, emotional, and financial worries.
Complete Article >Using Research to Improve Theory and Practice: A CIP Approach
By James P. Sampson, Jr.
This article describes how cognitive information processing (CIP) theory attempts to improve the design and delivery of career resources and services by helping researchers and practitioners better locate and use information about the theory.
Complete Article >The Parallel Roles of Counselor Educators and Counselors-in-Training: Parenting During the Pandemics
By Regina Gavin Williams and Angie Smith
During the pandemics, many caregivers are attempting to fulfill expectations of employers, while experiencing issues of un/underemployment and attempting to homeschool their children. Counselor educators are also navigating their multiple roles while offering support to students who are facing similar struggles. The authors will outline key factors and professional and personal suggestions for counselor educators.
Complete Article >Learning About Learning: A Review of the Book How Humans Learn: The Science and Stories of Effective College Teaching
By Melissa Fickling
Many career development professionals will adopt an educator role at some point in their career. As counselor educators, we are proud of our history of educating career practitioners, though we must also regularly refresh our knowledge and practices around teaching. Adding the contents of this recent book to your repertoire may help to increase your effectiveness as an instructor.
Complete Article >Funding Knowledge Creation
By Patrick Akos and Roni White
Research plays a fundamental and expansive role in the work of our professional home, as evidenced by publications, grants, and committee work within NCDA. If you need assistance with research, such as reaching potential participants or securing funds to complete research, look to NCDA for support. [Ed's. Note: This article has been updated and reprinted here in support of Counselor Educators and Researchers.]
Complete Article >Career Research: Challenges and Strategies in the Time of COVID
By Lia D. Falco, Carol Klose Smith, Brian Calhoun, and Debra Osborn
A review of the unprecedented changes resulting from the pandemic reveals much about the nature of work. Our field must acknowledge the complex and dynamic nature of the pandemic and, consequently, the complex and dynamic implications for career practice, counselor education, and research. Suggested strategies are shared.
Complete Article >Understanding the Role of Unconscious Conflict in Career Counseling
By Lynn Friedman
Career counseling is effective for most clients. However, some unconsciously undermine the process. Why do these clients engage in self-sabotage? How can they be understood and helped? The author presents a model for psychoanalytically-informed career assessment and describes how this approach can lead to useful recommendations for career assistance. [Editor's Note: this article originally appear in Career Convergence in 2014. It is included here today due to its significance to the work of a career professional.]
Complete Article >Essentials of Career-Focused Counseling: The Quality Toolbox for Counselors-in-Training
By Zach Budesa
Dr. Chad Luke’s book focuses on providing information which students and professional counselors can put into practice. Dr. Luke takes a relational tone and focuses on ethical and multicultural practices throughout the text. The book also attempts to integrate brain-based information into career counseling, and points readers to important resources, like ethical codes and career-based websites. Essentials of Career-Focused Counseling includes practical and theoretical information to benefit readers.
Complete Article >[Recognition Award Winner] What’s Love Got to Do with…Careers?
By Tara Iagulli
The complexities introduced into career counseling by couples provide challenges that foster creative energy and problem solving, particularly the issues surrounding romantic relationships. Here are concrete suggestions for connecting on a deep level with students to help them manage their major life transitions, while priming the pump for future development work. [Editor's Note: This article was recognized by NCDA in 2016 for the author's contribution to the web magazine. Career Convergence is re-running the article in July 2020 in honor of all award winners typically recognized at the annual NCDA Global Career Development Conference.]
Complete Article >Career Autobiography Reflections
By Aaron H. Oberman and Lindsay Harman
The career autobiography can serve as a useful assessment tool when working with graduate students and clients in the career counseling process. This type of assessment demonstrates connections to career development theories for counseling graduate students, as well as helping facilitate client reflections on career interests and previous work experiences.
Complete Article >Collaborative Initiatives Between Counselor Preparation Programs and Disadvantaged Schools For Early Career Development
By Kathleen Marie Barrett
Counseling theorists, child development specialists, educators, and virtually every professional counseling association agree that early career development is important, especially for children in poverty. In reality however, few young children actually receive these needed services. Is there untapped potential in collaboration between schools and universities to effect needed change?
Complete Article >Counselor Educators, Working Identities and Constructing a Better, Healthier World
By Victoria Shivy
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted everyone’s personal and professional lives. Changes to work –already occurring— have accelerated, and no one can know what the ‘new normal’ will be. Working, including performing academic work, offers a personal source of fulfillment, structure, and identity, for our students and ourselves. But now, work itself, the context is in flux, to a degree that feels frightening and strange. How can counselors help construct a better, healthier world?
Complete Article >On Getting Started in Research and Asking Good Questions: Thoughts from Members of the NCDA Research Committee
By Doug Gardner, Debra Osborn, Melissa Wheeler, Brian Calhoun
Career development specialists and counselors engage with research through their evaluation of outcomes related to work with clients. Practice-driven research requires careful consideration of what we want to know, who we will ask, and how we will gather the information we need. Members of the NCDA Research Committee share their thoughts on how to begin asking good research questions and tips for beginning a research project.
Complete Article >Purpose as a Framework for Post-Secondary Planning and Career Development
By Lia Falco
In the current context of “college and career readiness,” too much emphasis on improved academic achievement may not adequately help students make successful post-secondary transitions. To help students truly become college- and career-ready, counselor educators can teach school counselors to use career interventions that emphasize development of students’ life purpose. This, in turn, can enhance students’ motivation and planning for both short- and long-term career goals.
Complete Article >Ultimate Mission: Turnkey Empowerment of Counselors to Clients
By Nicole M. Arcuri Sanders and Emily Raymond
Client empowerment is a crucial component of effective counseling and an important skill for counselors-in-training (CITs) to master. It follows that counselor educators and supervisors should empower their students so that these CITs experience the empowerment process first-hand. Only then can CITs truly grasp its importance and learn when and how to address empowerment with their own clients.
Complete Article >Integrating Career and Mental Health Assessment and Treatment
By Brian Calhoun and Seth Hayden
Connections between individuals’ career development and mental health are well established with challenges in career impacting mental health, and vice-versa. These connections have implications for career assessment and intervention. We provide recommendations for assessing and treating comorbid career and mental health concerns using a case study for illustration.
Complete Article >Promoting College and Career Readiness: Experiential Learning Activities for School Counselors-In-Training
By Taheera N. Blount
This article discusses three experiential college and career readiness learning activities counselor educators can infuse within their curriculum.
Complete Article >Finding Your Calling: A Reflection Retreat for Graduate Students
By Yas Hardaway
One university has taken a step beyond the traditional career development appointments and workshops to offer a unique overnight retreat experience for its graduate students. Utilizing a narrative therapy technique called The Tree of Life, the retreat promotes vocational discernment through self-reflection and community building.
Complete Article >The Career and College Readiness Self-Efficacy Inventory and Foster Care Adolescents
By Regina Gavin Williams
Career counselor educators can teach counseling interns strategies that may enhance the career and college readiness of foster care adolescents. The Career and College Readiness Self-Efficacy Inventory (CCRSI) is one such tool that can help counseling interns work towards customizing career and college readiness interventions for foster care adolescents. A case study example of how to implement the CCRSI is shared.
Complete Article >Embracing Chaos Theory of Careers
By Christopher Mesaros
The workforce is less predictable, more freelance, and careers are extending well beyond traditional retirement age. Chaos Theory of Careers offers a framework for promoting adaptability, preparedness, and embracing change for students. To do this, we must reject old narratives and encourage preparing for complexity through branding and transferable skills.
Complete Article >Connecting Mental Health, Career Counseling and Culture for Asian Americans
By Elise Brown and Monica P. Band
Cultural values influence Asian Americans’ career decisions and career development. Understanding the myths surrounding Asian stereotypes as well as the occupational and economic diversity among the Asian American populations will assist in providing culturally competent career counseling. The authors provide recommendations of essential cultural considerations.
Complete Article >Putting the Career Counselor Hat On
By Natasha Barnes
Counseling students enter training programs wearing many “hats.” While in the program, they begin to identify professional interests. A career counseling “hat” seems harder for students to identify with, so it is important that counselor educators find innovative ways to engage students in a career counseling course.
Complete Article >Career Credentialing for Counselor Educators & Supervisors: A Tool for Advocacy Within Our Profession
By Tina Anctil
As counselor educators and supervisors who specialize in career counseling, it is imperative that we support the advancement of our specialty to future career counselors. With the establishment of competency-based credentials, we can now promote our specialty in a dynamic way to counseling students and graduates, allowing for a new generation of career counselors.
Complete Article >Fostering Career Counseling Self-efficacy in Counselor Education
By Terri L. Jashinsky & Carrie L. King
This article highlights the value of a learning environment that fosters self-efficacy with counselors-in-training in career counseling courses. By reflecting on our experiences teaching career counseling and reviewing results of a quantitative analysis, we have identified five key ingredients for counselor educators to consider incorporating into their career counseling courses.
Complete Article >An Experiential Opportunity for Counselors-in-Training: Facilitating Undergraduate Engagement in Career Education
By Suzy Wise and Timothy Schoonover
Career Planning, an undergraduate course at Northern Illinois University taught by graduate counseling students, serves as a unique learning experience for both instructors and students. This article briefly explores the benefits of teaching a full-semester, undergraduate course focused solely on career development.
Complete Article >Invigorating Career Counseling Courses Through Experiential Activities
By Azra Karajic Siwiec and Varunee Faii Sangganjanavanich
There are ways career educators can invigorate learners’ interest through experiential activities. This article provides examples of experiential activities that not only prepare learners to meet the standards of the career development profession, but also provide them with excitement and interest in career development and counseling.
Complete Article >Lean in and Lift as We Climb
By Dannette Gomez Beane
We have giants in our field that we aspire to be; and then there are those who aspire to be like us. This inspiring article describes four women’s desire to "lean in" and responsibility to "lift up.” Avoiding dependency will allow for emerging professionals and accomplished executives to grow with balance.
Complete Article >Breaking into the Classroom: 5 Tips to Integrate Career Components into Student Coursework
By Nicole Poff
Student Affairs and Academia are two different worlds. Through classroom integration, our career center has been able to successfully begin the process of merging the two worlds to create a better student-client experience. Aspiring university career counselors may need to be instructed as to how to start the process of integration in their future employment.
Complete Article >Self-Care for Facilitators of Career Development: 10 Ways to Manage Work Stress
By Rita Soultanian
In 2012, 65 percent of Americans cited work as a top source of stress, according to the American Psychological Association's (APA) annual Stress in America Survey. Counselor educators need to be proactive in managing their own work stress and teach future career counselors how to manage their work stress in order to care for others effectively.
Complete Article >Create One Class: Designing a College Career Course Across Career Developmental Stages and Interests
By Rebecca Dordel
Counselor Educators in programs that specialize in training career counselors may struggle with helping future counselors develop skills to teach their own career development courses. This article discusses the common challenges that beginning counselors face, and a unique approach to encourage students to take ownership of customizing their career course.
Complete Article >Enhancing Students' Strengths from the Classroom to Their Career
By Rebecca E. Michel, Maria Mendez, and Mary K. Wendel
This article showcases how counselor educators can utilize a strengths-based approach to help graduate students understand their personal strengths and apply strengths-based approaches in practice career counseling sessions and team-based community workshops.
Complete Article >Understanding and Counseling Clients with Job Loss
By Shelly Trent
Providing career counseling services to someone who has been fired or laid off is very different from providing services to someone who simply wants to change careers. Job loss is similar to the death of a loved one, and the counselor should treat the client as if he or she is grieving.
Complete Article >A Case Study Approach to Ethics in Career Development, Second Edition
Book Review by Jacqueline Gabbard Belle
This monograph serves as a resource for learning, reflection, and collaboration in an effort to assist career practitioners in preparing for problems and questions that may arise as a result of ethical dilemmas. The intended audience includes career development professionals at all levels and settings.
Complete Article >Best Practices for Undergraduate Psychology Career Planning Courses
By Mary Shuttlesworth and Laura Rose
Students may struggle with career preparation in disciplines like psychology, where a clear career path is not specified. Career planning courses may address this challenge. The purpose of this article is to provide strategies to effectively design career planning courses that may be tailored to meet the unique needs of students and institutions.
Complete Article >Kindness and Mindset in Career Counseling
By Juliana Parker
Help clients see themselves from a strength-based perspective while identifying the potential mindset of people in client’s lives. This article explores the significance of self-limiting beliefs in the career exploration process. Adopting the mantra of “Be Kind to Yourself” addresses cognitive beliefs about abilities to pursue a career and fulfill aspirations.
Complete Article >Positive Impact of Career Planning Courses: Applying Narrative Strategies to Empower Teaching and Practice
By Michael J. Stebleton and Mark Franklin
The successful implementation of career planning courses can foster effective management skills for both undergraduate and graduate students. Narrative approaches serve as effective strategies. This article explores the rationale and overview of two classes – one in Toronto, Canada; the other at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, USA. Strategies for career educators are provided.
Complete Article >Helping Clients with Right Hemisphere Brain Damage with Post-Stroke Career Development
By Levette Dames and Jamila Minga
Right hemisphere stroke can result in changes in communication and thought processes that negatively influence return to work. This article describes an approach to post-stroke career development for adults with right hemisphere disorder that merges the expertise of speech-language pathologists and career counselors.
Complete Article >Student Reactions and Career Counselor Experiences with the Career Construction Interview
By Mylene Culbreath and Suzanne Voigt
While studies have found that the Career Construction Interview (CCI) can help students navigate the career decision-making process, the CCI remains an underutilized resource in many university career centers. The following studies considered how undecided college students and career counselors reacted to the CCI assessment process.
Complete Article >Adding the Spice: A Primer on Developing or Renewing Career Counseling Courses
By Courtney R. Boddie
Career counseling courses infrequently receive the love they deserve. Students tell us they can be boring and seem irrelevant. This article offers one counselor educator’s perspective on how to marshal your resources to raise the profile and value proposition of this course.
Complete Article >Defining Career Consultation
By Chadwick Royal
The purpose of this article is to define career consultation and to describe how it is different from other career development activities.
Complete Article >Empowering Choices in Career Counseling through a Collaborative Approach
By Liliana Rodríguez-Campos and Maha Alamoud
The purpose of this article is to provide a collaborative framework as an innovative new direction to increase the benefit for career counseling clients and employers. This framework is adopted from the Model for Collaborative Initiatives (Rodríguez-Campos, 2004) and its six components that guide a collaborative approach to career counseling.
Complete Article >Dysfunctional Career Thoughts and Persons Diagnosed with a Chronic Illness
By Levette S. Dames
Career decision making by persons with a chronic illness such as breast cancer, HIV, diabetes, and end stage renal disease have been the focus of various studies over the years. However, limited researchers have examined how one’s dysfunctional career thoughts are affected while being afflicted with a chronic illness.
Complete Article >Supporting Immigrant College Students towards Career Success
By Michael J. Stebleton and Kate K. Diamond
Counselor educators and career development professionals can support immigrant college students around career decision-making processes. The authors offer an overview of the unique assets, challenges, and issues encountered by immigrant students in the United States . Stories and strategies for practice are provided.
Complete Article >Supporting Immigrant College Students towards Career Success - Lupe's Story
By Michael J. Stebleton and Kate K. Diamond
Complete Article >Supporting Immigrant College Students towards Career Success - Thao's Story
By Michael J. Stebleton and Kate K. Diamond
Complete Article >Supporting Immigrant College Students towards Career Success - Pedro's Story
By Michael J. Stebleton and Kate K. Diamond
Complete Article >Announcing a New Associate Editor
By Chadwick Royal
Chadwick Royal is the new associate editor for the Counselor Educators and Researchers Department. This article introduces the new associate editor and provides an invitation to submit articles to this department. The invitation describes some of the types of articles sought.
Complete Article >Helping Clients Think Clearly When Making Career Decisions
By Shékina Rochat
Thinking errors can cloud career decision-making. This article helps counselors spot some of these hindrances in clients’ statements and suggests ways to overcome them.
Complete Article >Assessing Your Clients’ Work Values: Another Way to Hone in on Occupational Matches
By Jennifer Greene and Melissa Messer
Work values reflect specific preferences for work environments that are important to a person’s satisfaction with his or her job. By understanding a client’s work values, you can better identify potentially satisfying jobs. Examples of work values inventories, tips for selecting appropriate instruments and practical applications are discussed.
Complete Article >Training and Supervising Holistic Practitioners: The Career Lens Approach.
By Jon Rosenfield and Camille Helkowski
While most counselors have taken a career counseling course, many have not received grounding in a convergence of developmental, relational, and career theories, much less the specifics of career counseling practice. The Career Lens Model aims to provide effective support for the work of career counselors by offering on-going training and supervision that links practice to a holistic conception of our clients‘ lives.
Complete Article >A Day in the Life of a High School Counselor: Painting the Picture of Adolescent Career Development
By Sarah A. Lopienski
As a high school counselor, one of my jobs is developing career awareness. All the literature, combined with practical experience, points out that adolescence is an important time for students to begin making career decisions. But, it appears to me that students have different issues: complete boredom, confusion, or definite uncertainty.
Complete Article >Getting “SuperBetter” at Building One’s Career
By Shekina Rochat
SuperBetter is a game designed to help individuals adopt a “gameful mindset” to engage in life challenges. Integrating this game’s rules and vocabulary into career counseling is likely to assist clients in getting “SuperBetter” at building their career. This article describes the activity and applies it to a client case.
Complete Article >Using Career Convergence to Engage Career Counseling Students
By Chad Luke
It can be a challenge to engage graduate students in career-related material in order to improve career-related services. Career Convergence is a tremendous asset in this endeavor. In this article, the author (and associate editor for the counselor educator department) offers an example of using Career Convergence that can result in valuable feedback and an increased desire to learn more.
Complete Article >The Tony Watts Reader
Book Review by Phil Jarvis
Draw inspiration from Dr. Tony Watts through Hooley and Barham's 2015 book, "Career Development Policy and Practice."
Complete Article >What’s Love Got to Do with…Careers?
By Tara Iagulli
The complexities introduced into career counseling by couples provide challenges that foster creative energy and problem solving, particularly the issues surrounding romantic relationships. Here are concrete suggestions for connecting on a deep level with students to help them manage their major life transitions, while priming the pump for future development work.
Complete Article >Career Development Pedagogy: Using Community Engagement to Enhance Interest and Skills
By Leann Wyrick Morgan
Counselor educators are always looking for ways to draw graduate students in career development courses toward integration of theory and practice. Through this community partnership, students were able to provide essential career counseling interventions to secondary students at-risk of school failure and career underachievement, while increasing their interest in career development.
Complete Article >Three Ways To Be A Valuable Career Counselor Today
By Val Matta
What are the keys to success in our field today? Read one perspective highlighting three tech-related strategies that career counselors need to adopt in order to stay current and competitive.
Complete Article >Career Collage
By Aaron H. Oberman
The career collage is an engaging activity to introduce students to the importance of career counseling by helping them to reflect on their own career development. This activity involves students creating and sharing a one slide collage that shows the career path they took to pursuing a counseling degree.
Complete Article >Skill Use on the Job: Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Skills and Career Counseling
Jenny Bell Martin and Debbie Corso De Marco
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a set of skills designed to help those with emotion dysregulation issues better manage emotional intensity and lability, and is now being used much more widely among young adults, including for career development. Implications for career counseling are presented.
Complete Article >Research Shows Effectiveness of Life-Story Writing For Career Change
By George Dutch
Research on career change outcomes from life-story writing can assist educators and practitioners to help individuals construct “new” career identities that increase their motivation to act effectively in a volatile economy where career change (as distinguished from job change) is an inevitable reality for increasing numbers of individuals.
Complete Article >Generating Graduate Student Interest in Career Counseling
By David Dietrich
Career counseling is one of the eight common core curricular areas outlined by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Programs (CACREP). Despite this stated importance within the discipline, counseling programs often treat career counseling as an afterthought. This article outlines some basic strategies to overcome this tendency, and to increase student interest in career counseling.
Complete Article >The Role of Values in Careers
Book Review By Melanie Reinersman
Whether conscious or unconscious, values are a “powerful motivator of human behavior” (p. 245). Using this book, anyone in the field of career development should feel encouraged and empowered to undertake a thorough exploration of the concept of values.
Complete Article >“Typical” Tuesday: A Career in Counseling
By Nicole M. Arcuri
This article discusses how each and every day as a counselor within a school system as well as in the mental health field is unpredictable and requires counselor flexibility. It is intended to provide master level students with an idea of what to expect when they enter the field. This is just one day in the life of a budding counselor!
Complete Article >Graduate Career Courses: Engaging Students
By Vanessa B. Teixeira
This article focuses on how counselor educators can better engage counseling students in a graduate level career counseling course. Keeping students engaged is critical to their learning. Counselor educators support students and the field by providing students with material that is educational, didactic and enlightening, but also engaging.
Complete Article >Commitments and Practices for Thriving in the Changing World of Work
By Mark Guterman
As the world of work continues to change profoundly, there are six key “commitments and practices” that career development professionals need to build into their work with students and clients. This article describes each of the six in detail and offers thoughts and ideas on how to make them and integral part of how we do our work. [Eds. Note: This article originally appeared here in August 2011. It is being repeated in celebration of Career Convergence's All Conference issue. See NCDA NEWS for more details.]
Complete Article >30 Tips for New Career Counselors
By Maureen Nelson
Read on to discover what a graduate student nearing graduation learned in a nine-month career center internship about the counseling environment, working with clients, collaborating with colleagues, and developing her own skills. A mixture of age-old wisdom and fresh insights that any career counselor can enjoy and benefit from! [Eds. Note: This article originally appeared here in December 2007. It is being repeated in celebration of Career Convergence's All Conference issue. See NCDA NEWS for more details.]
Complete Article >The Career Counseling Casebook
Book Review By Stephanie Tursic Burns
The Career Counseling Casebook 2nd Edition includes 41 cases organized by lifespan development stages from the first case with a nine year old boy to the last case with a retired couple. Every case engages the reader to increase their knowledge and application of career development skills to assist growth.
Complete Article >Out with the Old, In with the New: Career Development for the 21st Century
By Jacqueline Dernek
The world is changing at a rate unlike any other time in history. This is creating quite the dilemma in the world of work. The time has come to shift the way we think about how we deliver career development services and more broadly how we think about career.
Complete Article >Learning Outcomes Assessment Step-by-Step: Enhancing Evidence-Based Practice in Career Services
Book Review By Joy Evans and Phyllis N. Weatherly
Learning outcomes assessment is a hot topic within career development, particularly in higher education. The following book review explores a recent NCDA monograph on this important topic, including a detailed description of its content and key takeaways for all readers across niche areas.
Complete Article >Beyond Luck: A Planned Happenstance Approach to Supervision
By David Youhess
Effective supervision for graduate students can be linked not only to higher productivity, but perhaps to greater eventual career attainment as well. By explicating his recent transition to full-time career counselor in relation to John Krumboltz’s Planned Happenstance Theory, the author suggests how supervisors may use the theory as a framework for guiding supervisees to develop into tomorrow’s career counselors.
Complete Article >The First Year Graduate Student Experience at Florida State University
By Leigh Eskin
Choosing to go to graduate school is an important decision. This article provides in-depth information and suggestions from a first year career counseling graduate student at Florida State University. Get an inside view into the experience of being a graduate student at one of the top career centers in the nation.
Complete Article >A Counselor Educator Reveals his Creative Side and Models Valid Career Decision Making
By Melanie Reinersman
He's living proof that the career development philosophy we teach our clients is inspiring and empowering. If he were your client years ago, you could now claim he is successfully following all the lessons he was taught about networking, planned happenstance, and effective career decision-making. Who is this active NCDA member, Ph.D. Counselor Educator, and television actor?
Complete Article >First Jobs: Managing the transition from counseling graduate student to full-time Career Counselor
By Sarah Backes-Diaz
Transitions usually present a complicated mix of emotions for most people including fear, excitement, and many others. The process of moving from the identity of graduate student to full-time counseling professional is no exception. How appropriate that this time of year one new professional shares her transition story. (Eds. Note: this article is being repeated due to the timely relevance of the topic).
Complete Article >Popular Materials for Training Career Counselors
By Debra Russ
Learning the art of career counseling requires obtaining practical knowledge of concepts, models, skills, instruments, and labor market information resources. Fortunately there is a plethora of available materials for learning career counseling. Find out which materials are the most widely used in career education.
Complete Article >What Do You Do If You Are Stuck? Using Creativity in Career Counseling
By Mary Ann Hollingsworth
Career indecision is a common obstacle for many students in the selection of college majors, as well as for adults selecting both initial career paths and making subsequent career changes. The result is often a sense of being "stuck". This article provides unique activities and suggestions that use creativity as a tool for resolution to help clients become "unstuck." While this article is well-suited for graduate students and new professionals looking for new interventions to expand their "tool box", seasoned counselors will also benefit from this refresher.
Complete Article >Case Note Writing Tips for Career Development Facilitators
By: David A. Scott & Michelle Grant Scott
CDF's working in One-Stop centers, other agencies and schools may find themselves responsible for writing case notes. If they have not received training in this area, lack of proper skills and techniques can create problems for themselves and the agency. Included are some guidelines to help CDF's write appropriate case notes.
Complete Article >Podcasting in Career Development
By Chadwick Royal
Podcasting is a technology that is predicted to only increase in use over time (Joly, 2006). A brief description and the rationale for podcasting are presented. A list of the potential applications of podcasting in career development is provided.
Complete Article >Using Career Convergence as a Teaching Tool in Counselor Education Programs
By Julia Y. Porter
How do we provide realistic learning experiences for graduate students in counselor education programs to prepare them to become career counselors? Career Convergence can be used as an effective teaching tool to provide current, practical information about techniques and strategies being used by practicing career counselors.
Complete Article >Life as a New Professional
by Brian M. Montalvo
When transitioning from graduate school to the world-of-work, many things are overlooked. Graduate students who read this article can get a better sense of what actually happens when you begin to work full-time. You'll also receive helpful ideas you can do while you're still in graduate school to make the transition easier.
Complete Article >Career Education: History and Future
book by Kenneth B. Hoyt
The Table of Contents and Foreword is excerpted directly from the book. This special feature of Career Convergence is provided to readers to highlight the excellent resources available through NCDA.
Complete Article >
