Addressing Career Concerns in Adolescence
Reflecting on your readings, other articles you locate in the professional literature, your online research for career resources, and your exploration of the Capella Career Center, consider the types of career-planning information and resources you might draw from when exploring career-related issues with clients and students.
For this discussion, imagine that you are working with a 17-year-old adolescent and his family. They have come to see you because the teen is not attending school regularly and states that he intends to drop out because school is boring and he wants to start working and be treated like an adult. His parents state that they are willing to treat him like an adult if he prepares for his future appropriately and can demonstrate that he will be able to find a job he enjoys and earn enough income to support himself. He is not sure what kind of career path he would like to follow and would consider vocational training.
As the counselor, what knowledge about career and educational planning do you need to begin your work with this teen? How would you go about locating resources that would be helpful for the teen and his family? Include in your post at least two resources from the Capella Career Center and at least two online career resources that the teen could access to support his career and educational planning process.
Also, discuss in your post how you would move forward with the teen and his family to address any concerns that may arise about the teen’s success in finding an appropriate job or vocational training placement, as well as what type of follow-up and evaluation you would include about this issue in future counseling sessions.
Response Guidelines
Read the initial posts of your peers and respond to at least one learner whose post resonates with you. Your response may involve asking questions for clarification, respectfully debating points, and presenting additional information that you see as relevant to your peer’s post.
Learner Post:
Jennifer Ranger
Unit 6 Discussion 1
COLLAPSE
As a school counselor, it is important to know about vocational planning tool resources to help students explore and prepare for future success. The Capella Career Center has some incredible, assessments that can help a student identify their own interests, strengths, and lagging skills. The Career Planning Self-Assessment is a layered assessment that walks the user through job search strategies, identifying skills, exploring interests and values, exploring career options, and career exploration guides. Each of these assessments evaluates the student’s areas of strengths and weaknesses related to preparedness to pursue a career. Once identified, the assessment guides the student to educational resources to strengthen their lagging skills and narrow their focus for a career. Another Capella resource is the Job Search Tools. Here you can learn how to create a good resume, prepare for an interview, and prepare job offers.
There are many on-line resources, in fact an overwhelming amount of assessments and career counseling sites available on the internet. A good site should be free, have open access, contain current and accurate information, should be unbiased, and be easy to navigate (NCDA 2018). A couple of good assessment sites are 16 personalities or Assessment.com. Careers.org is a site that has job information from around the world, listing details such as wages, skills, and corresponding educational requirements. Career Directors International is a blog site that has resources for professionals and job seekers, filled with resume writing tips.
When meeting with the teen and his family, I might walk them through some of the available assessments and on-line resources. Unless they had time to complete the assessments in my office, I would ask them to explore the resources at home and spend some time going through the tutorials. I would encourage the teenager to prioritize their areas that need improvement and bolster those skills with the available resources. I would ask them to collaborate and spend some time thinking about what type of career might be a good fit and finally, to compile a resume and cover letter. I would schedule a follow up appointment to review the materials and answer questions.
National Career Development Association. (2018). Retrieved from: http://ncda.org
