ED 221

OUTLINE

Assoc. Prof. Deniz Albayrak-Kaymak

(Revised, 2023)

ISSUE 8:
TYPES OF GUIDANCE-COUNSELING:
CAREER DEVELOPMENT

Careers are legitimate involvement grounds for individuals to make social as well as
economical contributions. Through careers, individuals make living and modern social life is
made by presence of careers.

Career counseling has been a traditional area of counselor activity. Services designed to
relate school and work experiences have been a viable concept since Parsons who has done
pioneering work in this area a century ago.

First career counseling focused on providing information, and then came planning,
placement, and follow-up processes. Later it has turned into a whole school responsibility
(career education). In 1990s counselor priority in related programs was acknowledged,
transition from school to work and school-community partnership were emphasized. Most
recently, career related services have been extended to outside school populations including
special population groups and needs.

It might be useful to define a set of related concepts commonly used in career development
literature:
Job, something done for money.
Work, piece of activity done for its own sake.
Occupation, job or work involvement.
Vocation, a trade or an area of occupation.
Career, total work experiences in an occupational category.
Profession, vocation that requires training in higher education (holding white collar as
opposed to blue-collar jobs).
Business, arrangement of work through exchange of products by money

Since it is broader than other terms and covers all other processes, “career” is preferred to
refer to social involvement aspects of people. Career development, career education and
career counseling are interrelated. They cover a lifespan process and are valid for all ages.

Career development theories are not general theories of development, but specific and
purposeful theories at the crossroads of various disciplines. No appreciable convergence of
different theories was done, but each provides important implications for counseling.

Basic points of contributions from major theories of career development can be briefly
summarized as in the following:

Trait-factor theories, especially the one by Parsons, are the oldest and the most durable
ones. For successful career planning individual traits are objectively assessed, matched to
careers as classified by requirements/characteristics.

F. Parsons wrote a book (1909) called Choosing a vocation published in Boston by Houghton
Mifflin. It is among the trait-factor theories, one of the oldest and the most durable theories.
For Parsons, the ideal career choices are based on matching personal traits (aptitude,
abilities, resources, personality) with job factors (wages, environment, etc.) to produce the
best conditions of vocational success. The purpose was to help individuals decide on a
career. This framework contained a three part formulation: First, a clear understanding of
yourself, aptitudes, abilities, interests, resources, limitations, and other qualities. Second, a
knowledge of the requirements and conditions of success, advantages and disadvantages,
compensations, opportunities, and prospects in different lines of work. Third, true reasoning
of the relations of these two groups of facts.

Developmental theories are based on stage and age related characteristics over lifetime.
* Ginzberg and colleagues (1950s-1970s):
o importance of early school in later career planning.
o phases of fantasy, tentative, realistic choices.
o optimum is to be achieved through ongoing effort.
o choice crystallized through compromise.
o external constraints recognized.

* Blau and colleagues (1950s):

o Choice as a compromise and continuously modified.
o Four personal (occupational information, technical skills, social characteristics,
values) and 4 occupational (demand, technical qualifications, personal qualities,
rewards) characteristics determine career entry.

* Havighurst (1960s):
o Developmental tasks and 6 lifelong stages of vocational development must be
achieved for happiness (identification, habit acquisition, identity acquisition,
productive person, productive citizen, responsible life).

* Erikson (1950s-1960s):
o Eight lifelong psychosocial stages each with a developmental task to be resolved, if
not successfully resolved, they lead to crisis (trust vs mistrust, autonomy vs doubt,
initiative vs guilt, industry vs inferiority, identity vs role confusion, intimacy vs
isolation, generativity vs stagnation, integrity vs despair).

*Super (1970s-1990s):
o Maxicycles, life stages (growth, exploration, establishment, maintenance, and
decline).
o Minicycles, transitions between stages.
o Recycling, rexploration and reestablishment.
o Degree of work satisfaction depending upon implementation of self-concept in
development of career identity (occupational self-concept).
o Differences in individual characteristics and occupational qualifications exist.
o Career maturity is becoming increasingly stable through interactive learning.
o Various factors influencing career pattern and readiness to meet demands.
o Synthesis/compromise between individual/social factors.
o Work providing a focus for personality organization (peripheral vs central).
Google images with words “Life Rainbow” and “D. Super” to see the visual image
summarizing contributions of this long lasting theory.

Personality theories
* Roe (1950s):
o Based on Maslow’s theory of basic needs.
o Early childhood experiences greatly influence individual needs, chosen occupational
categories (types and levels of responsibility).

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Roe theorized that a person is disposed to certain occupations based upon the way he is
raised. Roe broke parenting styles down into three major categories: "emotionally
concentrated," "avoidance prone" and "accepting." While serious flaws in her theories have
been identified, her model was the first to link childhood events and psychological needs
with career choices.

* Holland’s heuristic or hexagonal model (1960s, 1970s, 1980s):

o Personality types and environmental models (realistic, investigative, artistic, social,
enterprising, conventional), choice as an expression of personality.
o Congruence between the personality type and environmental model is required for
stability, satisfaction and achievement.
Google images with words “Hexagonal Model”, “Career Development” and “J. Holland” to
see the visual image summarizing typologies used in this theory.

* Krumboltz and colleagues (1990s):

o Based on Bandura’s social learning theory.
o Four factors (genetic makeup, environment, learning experiences and task skills)
influence career development and decision making.

Sociological theories, Importance of chance/accidents and environmental factors in career

choices.

Economic theories,
o Unavailability of jobs and qualified workers in career choices.
o Careers are important in providing basic necessities, job security and worker benefits
in decision making theory, choice promises are important in career selection.

Brown’s (1990) value based theory.

Finally, what can be concluded from all this?

 Career development is examined through developmental stages across the life span.
 Importance of needs in career development and decision making.
 Individual traits are assessed and interpreted.
 Environmental chance factors are recognized, rapid change and high tech era.
 Constant examining and updating theory and research needed.
 Enhance full potential development, experiences and strategies.
 Early prevention/compensation of inhibiting factors (assess, plan, place),
 Initiate early but continue across the lifespan.

Un/underemployment of youth, especially those from minorities, is among the top of recent
career related problems. To understand wide range of issues that can be addressed in career
counseling process one needs to understand various issues in the world of work. Recent
trends or changes in the workplace that counselors need to be alert about include the
following characteristics:
• multiple careers in a lifetime,
• drastic changes in career stability; temporary employees (contracted rather than tenured),
no job security, no job benefits,
• lesser paying jobs requiring dual income,
• every career open to all (no longer unique or closed to particular groups),
• drastic changes due to rapid technological advances, global marketplace,
• individual/national lives are shaped by global forces,
• midlife career changes, reentry of women, early retirement and second career,
• high tech and service jobs on rise.

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Issues include work on self-worth, retraining, mobility, alternative employment (possibilities
and consequences of change), job seeking skills, CV (Curriculum Vitae or resume) writing,
employment interview.

In working with traditionally disadvantaged populations, counselors have to take advocacy

roles, and identify resources and sources of support along with typical services.
• Women, salary and promotion, sexual harassment, working mothers, single parents.
There is occupational segregation of women and there are fewer women in management
positions.
• Minorities, un/underemployment, prejudice, low education, low prestige jobs,
correctional system.
• Minorities, un/underemployment, prejudice, low education, low prestige jobs,
correctional system.
• Poor, services at schools of poverty areas, community center assistance, and adult
education made accessible. Especially among minorities more than 34 million live below
poverty level in the U.S.
• People with disabilities, impairment in independent living skills and significant
disadvantages in employment opportunities (those use drugs and in correctional system
excluded).
• Dual career couples, this is the norm rather than exception, challenging family and
parenting roles and conflicting career priorities.

Schools influence in all 3 common/anticipated experiences of human beings:

1. early development (birth to youth),
2. education (lifespan),
3. work (youth to adulthood).

Schools are to facilitate skills of learning, living with others and working. They are to provide
and foster development of
• unbiased treatment, positive attitudes,
• honesty and respect,
• freedom of choice.

Schools have role in fostering the following learning:

• career is to be approached as a way of life, not just as a job,
• self-understanding and social development,
• insight into education process, its sequence, integration and knowledge,
• experience to the level of readiness to participate and observe (not just lecture and
discuss),
• concepts, skills, rules to form values,
• link with community,
• career part of total education program,
• coping with dramatic chances of work, and
• assistance for career maturity development.

The key person in career education programs is teacher, while valuable contributor of career
education program is counselor.

Techniques in career planning and decision-making:

• self awareness (values clarification, group guidance activities, assignment, films,
videotapes, tests, individual and group counseling),

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 • educational awareness (self in relation to opportunities at the world of work;
presentations, field trips, career shadowing, career days/weeks),
• career awareness (knowledge and awareness, websites, computer programs,
specialized programs, TV),
• career exploration (comparison, reality testing, computer program, published
material),
• career planning and decision making (narrow career opportunities, choose among
alternatives, examine each consequence, value compromise, implement the decision),
• placement and follow-up (job interview, CV, preemployment counseling, student
and job development, plans for program maintenance and operation).

Youth is to take control of life and become active agents in shaping own future, but they
have difficulty in
• forming realistic expectations,
• making satisfactory entry into work,
• adhering to company policies/supervisors/directors,
• taking full financial responsibility,
• finding free time for oneself (leisure time counseling),
• facing marital (relation related) decisions.

Another issue in career counseling is workaholism (over identification with work as

compensation for one’s inadequacies).

Computerized career assistance teams are common at schools. They include information
and guidance (more instructional, self-assessment) systems, career information on the
internet (local job opportunities, computerized job bank systems). Be aware of the issues of
confidentiality on the internet!

Reflection. What are your current career related concerns? How can career development
services help you actualize your career goals? How much of those relate to counseling
needs?

Mastery Questions
1. When asked what they do for a living, especially married women tend to respond as
“housewife.” Yet we know that it is not considered as a job, since women do not get
paid for the work they do for their families. Reflect on this matter: do you see any
problem regarding this status of women?
2. How come simple information giving on jobs turned into career education? Explain
the changes in the process.
3. What have you learned from career development theories that shed light on your
own development at this stage of your life?
4. What specific career related services do we need most at our schools in your opinion?
Why so?
5. Career development is a lifelong process, explain how.
…