Relation of Type and Amount of Training to Career Counseling Self‐Efficacy in Italy

This study examined the relation of self‐efficacy to length and type of training in a sample of Italian career counselors. Findings indicated that amount of career counseling training was positively related to counselors' self‐efficacy regarding their abilities to conceptualize vocational problems, deal with career indecision concerns, and provide educational counseling. In addition, counselors who had participated in an in‐service training course that focused on social cognitive/learning theories reported stronger self‐efficacy regarding their skills at vocational problem conceptualization and at educational counseling than did those who received more eclectic training.     

Counseling for Career Decision‐Making Difficulties: Measures and Methods

Career indecision may be the primary reason people go to career counselors. Much effort has been exerted to identify and investigate the causes of clients' career decision‐making difficulties. With the aim of facilitating clients' career decision making, the use of career indecision assessments can promote the effectiveness and efficiency of face‐to‐face career counseling. The authors review three evidence‐based, cost‐free assessments derived from decision theory: the Career Decision‐Making Difficulties Questionnaire, the Emotional and Personality‐Related Career Decision‐Making Difficulties questionnaire, and the Career Decision‐Making Profile questionnaire. The unique features of these assessments are described, and the ways they can contribute to facilitating career decision making in career counseling are explored with a case study example.     

Integrating Career and Personal Counseling

Career and personal counseling are inextricably intertwined. Career problems have a strong emotional component. Career indecision and procrastination may be better interpreted as zeteophobia, the fear of career exploration. Trait and factor theory pictures career counseling as unrealistically simplistic and leads neophytes to view it as boring. Training all counselors to integrate career and personal counseling would lead to better service for clients.     

Annual Review: Practice and Research in Career Counseling and Development, 1990

This review of the 1990 literature on career development and counseling emphasizes literature on career counseling approaches and interventions, and literature related to the general theme of “work within a life.” This theme addresses how work simultaneously expresses and influences how an individual functions as an integrated psychological being. The importance of the context of an individual's life is also emphasized throughout the review. Topics include race, sex, and multiple role issues, selected career choice issues and indecision, coping on the job, and job change and unemployment. Implications for career counseling are provided.     

Applying Social Cognitive Career Theory to Training Career Counselors

This article applies the social cognitive career theory formulated by Lent, Brown, and Hackett (1994) to training career counselors. Specifically, the authors propose extending the theory to understand and influence trainees' interest, engagement, and performance in career counseling. An initial offering of an advanced career counseling seminar is described as an example of an intervention designed to increase interest and involvement in career counseling and to improve performance among career counselors. Suggestions are made for future research and for training students to be interested, involved, and skilled in providing career counseling.     

Constructing a Life That Works: Part 1, Blending Postmodern Family Therapy and Career Counseling

Postmodern approaches to career counseling are well suited to addressing the challenges a postindustrial world poses to career development and overall life design. In this, the 1st of 2 articles exploring theory and practice, the authors examine the differences between traditional trait and factor models of career counseling and postmodern approaches using life narratives and social constructionism. As career counselors and marriage and family therapists, the authors' approach to career development integrates the literature on postmodern family therapy with emerging narrative approaches to career counseling. The 2nd article (C. Campbell & M. Ungar, 2004) discusses 7 aspects of the authors' daily practice as postmodern career counselors.     

Multicultural Career Counseling: A National Survey of Competencies and Practices

Career counselors' multicultural competence has not been widely investigated. In this study, a national sample of 230 career counselors completed an online survey that included measures of career counseling self‐efficacy and multicultural counseling competence. Beyond these self‐report instruments, counselors responded to open‐ended items that requested specific examples of their actual multicultural counseling practices. Results indicated that counselors rated themselves as multi‐culturally competent, but those ratings were more closely linked to general career counseling self‐efficacy than to external evaluations of their self‐reported multicultural counseling practices. Findings also reinforced the importance of training and experience in developing multicultural competence.     

Using the Adult Career Concerns Inventory to Measure Task Involvement

The Adult Career Concerns Inventory (ACCI) uses an attitudinal item-response scale to measure the planning attitudes dimension of career adaptability. This study examined the psychometric properties of the ACCI when used with a behavioral item-response scale. Results supported the hypothesized unidimensionality of the ACCI-B Exploration subscales, which related as expected to vocational identity, need for occupational information, career choice certainty, and career indecision. Using a behavioral ACCI item-response scale, in addition to an attitudinal one, may provide counselors with important information when working with client's making an initial career choice.     

The Career Decision‐Making Difficulties Questionnaire: A Case for Item‐Level Interpretation

The Career Decision‐Making Difficulties Questionnaire (CDDQ; Gati, Krausz, & Osipow, 1996) has long been demonstrated as a useful instrument for career counseling practice. Several case studies have demonstrated how and why using the CDDQ facilitates the career counseling process (e.g., Amir, Gati, & Kleiman, 2008; Gati & Levin, 2014; Levin & Gati, 2014). This study explores how an in‐depth analysis of a case study conducted at the item level can provide career counselors with a richer understanding of their clients’ needs. The case study also emphasizes how administering and providing feedback on the CDDQ in career counseling sessions is likely to foster working alliances. The study concludes by presenting an intervention map based on the CDDQ taxonomy.     

Individualized Career Counseling Outcome Assessment: A Case Study Using the Personal Questionnaire

Career counseling has evolved to include practices that attribute a central importance to context variables and meaning‐making processes. Accordingly, there is a need for client assessment tools that consider the subjectivity and cultural specificity of clients and the interface between their work and life concerns. The idiographic assessment of outcomes, which uses individualized measures that involve clients in the definition of person‐specific items, is a promising approach. This article explores the use of the Personal Questionnaire (PQ) as an individualized outcome measure that complements standardized outcome career measures. The authors identify the factors leading to the emergence of idiographic assessment in career counseling, review existing research relevant to the need for the PQ, and present a case study of career construction counseling that illustrates how the PQ helps counselors to obtain sensitive and contextualized assessments of career counseling outcomes, guides interventions, and facilitates meaning making.     

The Self‐Directed Search as a Stand‐Alone Intervention With College Students

The Self‐Directed Search (SDS; Holland, 1994 ) is sometimes administered to large student groups outside of counseling to address common career development needs. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the SDS as a stand‐alone intervention by comparing a general sample of college students who completed the SDS (n = 39) with a no‐treatment control group (n = 41) on several outcomes. Completion of the SDS related to an increase in the number of career alternatives being considered 4 weeks later but did not relate to career exploration, career decision‐making self‐efficacy, career indecision, and seeking of career counseling services. If the SDS is used outside of counseling with broad student samples, the authors suggest providing additional intervention to ensure that it promotes exploration of any additional careers being considered.     

Advancing the Career Counseling Profession: Objectives and Strategies for the Next Decade

This article discusses the 9 analyses of the career counseling profession's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that appear in this September 2003 special issue of The Career Development Quarterly. The author identifies points of convergence, proposes a mission statement, and summarizes what career counselors seem intent on doing in the coming years. The analysts recommended that the career counseling profession concentrate on 8 objectives: advancing theory that is more holistic, contextual, and multicultural; using accumulated research more effectively; focusing new research on the career counseling process; exploiting technology to construct new tools; ameliorating career counseling training; expanding the National Career Development Association's role; increasing advocacy about public policy; and fostering the international growth of the profession.     

The Structure and Measurement of Career Indecision: A Critical Review

This article presents a comprehensive review of literature published between 2000 and 2017 relating to the theoretical and empirical progress of indecision structural models and assessment. Because career indecision remains a central topic for counseling, it is important for the field to achieve an updated understanding of relevant models and measurement. Based on their review, the authors found that factors of career indecision can be reliably and validly measured by three instruments: the Career Decision Difficulties Questionnaire, the Emotional and Personality Career Difficulties scale, and the Career Indecision Profile. Drawing from these results, the authors developed an integrative model of career indecision consisting of five factors: neuroticism/negative affectivity, choice/commitment anxiety, need for information, lack of readiness, and interpersonal conflicts. Implications and recommendations for practice and research are discussed in a global context.     

The Case of Jessica Chang: A Business and Industry Perspective

This discussion presents a business and industry perspective on Jessica Chang's career. Jessica's career issues are analyzed from an organizational perspective and from a career counseling perspective, with attention to salient cross-cultural counseling issues. The discussion emphasizes actions that organizations can take to anticipate similar situations, and explores how Jessica could have better managed her career development in view of the challenges she encountered.     

Career Counseling in a Volatile Job Market: Tiedeman's Perspective Revisited

This article explores implications of Tiedeman's original theory for career counselors. Some components of the theory seem to be compatible with existing volatile job market conditions. Notions of career path recycling, development in reverse, nonlinear progress, and parallel streams in career development are explored. Suggestions are made for counseling interventions and future research using this perspective.     

Counseling for Continued Career Development After Retirement: An Application of the Theory of Work Adjustment

The theory of work adjustment (TWA; R. V. Dawis & L. H. Lofquist, 1984; L. H. Lofquist & R. V. Dawis, 1969, 1991) is useful in addressing the career counseling needs of retirees who want to continue working but who need to explore their career choices before settling on a new occupation or job. This article examines some of the challenges that midlife and older adults face as they plan postretirement careers. Information about TWA and a case example are provided to assist counselors in understanding how TWA can be applied to retirement career counseling.     

Creative Use of the Career Construction Interview

Designed as part of an individual career construction and life design counseling intervention, the Career Construction Interview (CCI) and My Career Story (MCS) workbook aid career counselors and other career service providers in helping clients construct, deconstruct, and reauthor their career stories. Recently, some career counselors have developed ways of using the CCI and the MCS in group settings. In this article, the author offers 3 additional ways to use the CCI and, thereby, add creativity to the career counseling process. These 3 ways include use of written exercises, career collages, and career portfolios. The article concludes with a call for career practitioners to continue to think creatively in using the CCI with clients.     

Counselors' Perspectives on Using the Career Style Interview With Clients

The authors investigated counselors' perspectives on using the Career Style Interview (CSI) with clients who had career concerns. Participants were a purposive sample of 34 counselors who had been trained in and who had used the CSI with clients. The findings indicated that the counselors viewed the CSI as a helpful and positive career counseling intervention. It was most effective at identifying clients' life themes and assisted them with making meaningful career decisions. Implications of these findings for career counseling practice and research are also discussed.     

Developmental Career Counseling with Teenage Parents

Although teenage parenthood is recognized by many counselors as a developmental identity crisis, it rarely has been viewed as a developmental career crisis. This article suggests developmental career assessment and counseling procedures for use with teenage parents.     

The Use of Genograms in Career Counseling With Elementary,Middle, and High School Students

Genograms have been used successfully in career counseling with adults; however, there has been limited use of genograms in career counseling with elementary, middle, and high school children. This article focuses on the benefits of using genograms and the reasons for them to be integrated into the comprehensive developmental guidance programs used by professional school counselors.