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To become a career consultant, you need an undergraduate degree in a human services discipline, a graduate certificate in careers counseling, two years of supervised professional experience, and to pass an approved exam. Volunteer work and interacting with resources are helpful. Career consultants give clients aptitude and other tests to understand their best career match. Passion for helping people is important, as is understanding statistics and advising clients on training and changing careers. Detailed files and reports are also necessary.
If you want to become a careers consultant, you will likely need an undergraduate degree in a human services discipline, and possibly even a graduate certificate in careers counseling. Two years of supervised professional experience, in addition to passing an exam approved by an organization such as the National Council of Certified Career Counselors, are usually required as part of the licensure requirements for a career consultant. As this is a helping profession, doing volunteer work is often considered a good way to start preparing to become a career consultant.
Community job search programs or non-profit job clubs can be good places to find volunteer positions, such as those that involve assisting career counselors with clients’ needs. Independent career coaches can also be a good source of volunteer work for someone aspiring to become a career consultant. Environments where you can interact and access resources are ideal for learning about the field and what your customers’ needs are.
For example, there are many aptitude and other tests that career consultants give clients that help the consultant and client understand careers that are likely to be a good match. The Meyers Briggs personality test is a type of tool used in exploration and aptitude tests that reveal areas of strong abilities. Another assessment tests manual dexterity by requiring the person to perform programmed tasks, such as drawing straight lines or joining dots with a pencil on paper or on the computer to form patterns. Intelligence tests can also be given to clients by a career advisor, as the results can help career advisors and each client discover what skill area clients are strongest in, such as primarily verbal or primarily numerical.
It’s important to have a genuine passion for helping people discover their best possible careers if you want to become a career advisor. Most of your working hours will be consulted with clients to determine your best career direction. In addition to understanding personality, intelligence and aptitude tests, career advisers must be confident working in areas such as advising clients on training and changing careers. It is important to keep track of statistics, such as those from the US Department of Labor, where careers are expected to experience faster-than-average, slower-than-average job growth, or remain stable over the next decade or so. . If you want to become a career consultant, remember that not only will you be advising clients, but you will also be tracking their progress with detailed files and reports.
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