Career Advising

Career Advising and Development

A Framework for Practice

Advising is designed to aid students’ growth and development by creating a teaching-learning relationship that helps students manage their learning and build a successful educational plan (Darling and Woodside, 2007).

Career advising focuses on the informational nature of advising and the need to help students see the connection between educational decisions and careers (Gordon, 2006).

Through the career advising process, students are helped to connect self-awareness, including interests, values, abilities and learning preferences, to their academic choices and future career plans. As students meet with advisers to discuss course selection and completion of academic programs, students are helped to discover:

Who they are.
The plan of study that is the best fit for them.
The courses appropriate for the plan of study.
How these choices correlate with their future career aspirations.

All students need career advising. However, few students recognize the importance of advising, and for many students, advising is synonymous with course selection. This type of prescriptive advising often lacks working relationships and does not provide a lasting connection between advisers and advisees. Career advising integrated into academic advising helps students see:

Where they are (Who Am I?)
Where they want to go in the future (Where Am I Going?)
How to get there (How Do I Get There?)

The 3-I Process (expanded)

The steps of career advising are presented sequentially for ease of understanding. However, advisers may find that in working with some students the steps are not sequential and may move in and out of the steps based on individual student need

Inquire

1. Establish rapport and build a working relationship with the student.

a. Location for session private conversation area.

b. Location is inviting.

c. Share a bit about yourself your vision board.

2. Determine the student’s knowledge base and assess the student’s career advising needs.

a. Intake sheet might be helpful what might this look like?

b. What are the critical questions? Use open-ended questions that require the students to engage in conversation

Inform

3. Explain and help the student understand the connections among self-awareness, educational choices, occupational information and academic and career planning.

a. Connecting the “Know Yourself” with the “Explore Options.”

b. Assist students in seeing how self-awareness will help them explore careers that are congruent with their characteristics, thus leading to career options that are interesting and satisfying. (Gover Career Cruising MatchMaker and My Skills and Learning Styles Inventory). May want to consider a values inventory, etc

4. Explain and help the student select interventions to assist in self, major and career exploration and career planning.

a. Refer students to additional resources. These may be found in the Counseling Office, Career Center, etc.

b. Advisers who are not knowledgeable regarding the interpretation of exploratory techniques may refer students to the Counseling Office or Career Center.

5. Set career advising goals with the student.

a. Goal setting helping students establish clear goals is critical.

b. Goals should address both academic decisions and decisions about future career plans.

c. Students should write their goals in the SMART goal format … Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.

d. Self-regulation (CCC Framework) should be incorporated into the advising/monitoring session

Integrate

6. Review and integrate gathered information (including interpretation of exploration results) and create a career plan (IPS) to achieve the student’s goals.

a. One of the most important components of the career advising process is to help students turn “data into information” (Niles and Harris- Bowlsbey, 2009) and to make sense of gathered information.

b. When students are ready to make decisions regarding the steps they need to take to accomplish their goals, the actions decided on become part of their career plan (IPS).

c. A career plan (IPS) can help students be intentional in how they plan for the future.

7. Evaluate plans and accomplishments, determine any short or long-term follow-up with the student and offer continuing support.

a. If an adviser has been effective in establishing rapport and providing information, resources and career planning, students will consider additional follow-up that might be recommended.

b. Students will evaluate the extent to which they have accomplished their goals set as part of the career advising process (Self-Regulation)

Meeting the Needs of Each Student

The purpose of education should be to provide every child with challenging and engaging educational opportunities in an equitable and inclusive environment so that they can achieve the knowledge and skills necessary to become successful adults. In order to ensure this, education needs to move from equality to equity, from providing the same resources and opportunities to all students to redistributing access and opportunity to them, specifically those students who are in special populations: special education, English language learners, homeless youth, youth in foster care, children of military personnel, economically disadvantaged youth and parenting youth. If equality means giving everyone the same resources, equity means giving each student access to the resources they need to learn and thrive.

To address individual needs of these students, a “one-size-fits-all” approach does not work. There are strategies that can be used to better meet the needs of special populations:

Facilitating equitable access rigorous content, participation, peer interaction and teacher attention.
Respecting and encouraging cultural preferences, native languages and cultural perspectives (e.g., youth culture; the disability culture; students’ community and family backgrounds).
Providing access to and/or extending gradelevel content by adjusting content, lesson processes and projects to meet the diverse academic and linguistic needs of individual students.
Comprehensive, individualized planning and course selection should be provided to each student. CTE is one way to address equity, while giving students the skills they need for the real-world of life and careers.

Resources

Postsecondary Readiness Digital Resource Guide Individual Plan of Study Pages 127-173

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