Various educational, counseling, and human resource management interventions can support individuals in developing and managing their careers.
Career Support Definition
Career support is commonly offered while in education, when transitioning to the labor market, when they are changing careers, during unemployment, and during the transition to retirement.
Career professionals, other professionals, or non-professionals such as family and friends may offer support.
The activities may occur on an individual or group basis and may be face-to-face or at a distance (including helplines and web-based services).
They include a career information provision (in print, ICT-based, and other forms), assessment and self-assessment tools, counseling interviews, career education programs (to help individuals develop their self-awareness, opportunity awareness, and career management skills), taster programs (to sample options before choosing them), work search programs, and transition services.
4 Types of Career Support
4 types of career support include:
Career information
Career information describes the information that supports career and learning choices.
An important sub-set of career information is labor market information (LMI), such as salaries of various professions, the employment rate, available training programs, and current job openings.
Career Assessments
Career assessments are tests that come in various forms and rely on quantitative and qualitative methodologies.
Career assessments can help individuals identify and better articulate their unique interests, personality, values, and skills to determine how well they may match a certain career.
Career Counseling
Career counseling assesses people’s interests, personality, values, and skills, helps them explore career options, and researches graduate and professional schools.
Career counseling provides one-on-one or groups professional assistance in exploration and decision-making tasks related to choosing a major occupation, transitioning into work, or further professional training.
Career Education
Career education describes how individuals come to learn about themselves, their careers, and the world of work. There is a strong tradition of career education in schools.
However, career education can also occur in a wider range of other contexts, including further and higher education and the workplace.
Some research shows that adding one year of schooling beyond high school increases 17.8% per worker.
However, additional years of schooling, beyond 9 or 10 years, have little effect on workers’ wages.
In Summary, better educated, bigger benefits. In 2010, 90% of the U.S. workforce had a high school diploma, 64% had some college, and 34% had a bachelor’s degree.