Schools with comprehensive career programmes select students from every class to be in charge of career activities in the school. Such students are in charge of disseminating necessary knowledge about careers in the school. I describe such students as Career Counsellors. Let us get down to the brass tacks of their qualities.
Foremost, effective Career Counsellors should evince a sense of self-awareness, which is the ability to know oneself to a great extent. Self-awareness helps Career Counsellors to know their strengths and weaknesses. In turn, they find ways to assist other students to choose their careers wisely.
Secondly, effective Career Counsellors should depict Unconditional Positive Regard (UPR), which is the attitude of being non-judgmental. For instance, Career Counsellors commit themselves to assist other students make informed career choices without judging them for being ignorant about career choices.
Thirdly, empathy is a very important quality Career Counsellors should wield. Empathy goes beyond sympathy. Whereas sympathy is to feel for, empathy is to strive to fit into someone’s shoe. Career Counsellors in schools can only be effective when they strive to know what other students are going through in the ‘valley of decision’.
Consequently, Career Counsellors should have excellent inter-personal or people skills. As they strive to assist other students in matters career choices, they should express a lot of tact. They should listen, communicate and demonstrate tremendous turn-taking skills.
Moreover, Career Counsellors should depict rapport-building skills. They should smile, use relevant tone of voice, maintain appropriate eye contact and use minimal prompts such as the ability to nod. In the same token, Career Counsellors should build rapport with other students through social skills such as politeness, gentleness, etiquette, kindness and compassion.
Furthermore, Career Counsellors should have marvellous mastery of multiple techniques and approaches. Meaning, effective Career Counsellors should know when and how to apply specific interventions while helping other students to navigate through vocational paths. They should have the ability to assess effectiveness of interventions by understanding rationale behind techniques they use.
Penultimately, effective Career Counsellors are the ones who have multi-cultural and social system competency. This is the quality that directs Career Counsellors to assist fellow students that hail from diverse backgrounds. This quality is close to UPR. Albeit, Career Counsellors who are multi-culturally competent stand to understand other students regardless of their race, ethnicity, beliefs, convictions and socio-cultural extractions.
Finally, effective Career Counsellors should evince flexibility, openness to learning and ability to research. On flexibility, I mean that they should adapt and change the way they respond and meet career needs of other students in the school. Then, they should be curious to learn more about other students; backgrounds and problems plaguing them while making career choices. In the same token, they should be open to new vistas of knowledge as they use manifold research tools available in the school library to help them guide other students on career choices.
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By Victor Ochieng’
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