As a career counselor, you want to assist teenagers, young adults, and even professionals with career decisions and goals. Making use of career coaching tools during your counseling sessions will enrich your client’s experience. Your client’s attempt to build an action framework will be greatly supported by an original counseling process. These 20 career counseling activities will help you give your clients comprehensive career guidance. Try an activity with students and watch them flourish on their career journeys!
1. Career Exploration Interviews
If you’ve got a number of school students as clients, host a joint career fair where you have various professionals discuss their day-to-day and career trajectories. This will help high school students evaluate potential careers and develop action plans to achieve their career aspirations.
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2. Career Assessment
Another career classroom lesson that you can use in your career counseling sessions for high school students is to have them complete questionnaires that help as young as 2nd-grade learners with career learning. Youngsters will find it easier to form career objectives when they are exposed to the different options available to them.
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3. Poetic Career Challenge
Have your students write a poem that includes their ideal profession, the average salary they can expect to make from it, the skills required, and the difference the job makes in society.
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4. Interest Profile
A career counseling technique that works well for children and adults alike is starting at the beginning by having your client catalog their interests. Career goals will be much easier to reach when your clients work in an industry that they love. This exercise will also spark career ideas.
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5. Self-Determined Career Research
Discovering the details of a career is important for anyone looking to get employed in that field at a later date. Encourage action planning in your clients by having them conduct company reviews, salary investigations, and other research to develop a coherent career narrative.
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6. Goal Setting
A student has approached you for career development and guidance in order to reach a specific career goal. They may be looking for new career experiences and opportunities or even just advice on career decisions. Have them set SMART goals with your guidance.
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7. Encourage The Continuous Re-authoring Process
Of all the approaches in career counseling, career development activities that focus on helping your students reframe their existing strengths or accomplishments work best. For example, a middle-aged client who is returning to school while working full time may be nervous about the workload, but you can help them point out all of the challenging things they have overcome in the past in order to strengthen their opinion of their own resolve.
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8. Career Journaling
Are you helping a client attempt to make sense of their existing job or move to a different industry? Your client’s feelings about what may be a chaotic career and their career life, in general, may be better managed through journaling.
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9. Career Position Role Playing
Sometimes, the only way for your students to truly get a feel for different career roles is to facilitate imaginary career rotations. Have them pick a career out of a hat and stand up to discuss the details related to the position.
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10. Career Cards
If you have experienced students who are exploring new career options, focus on career coaching questions and activities that help them consider crossover opportunities in their current line of work. Show them career cards that display jobs they are interested in and talk about how they could contribute to that field using their existing skill base.
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11. Career Development Wheel
Your client’s career identity is tied to how satisfied or unhappy they are with all of the little components that make up their day-to-day at work. Make a wheel that can spin and label the different quadrants with things like “Peers”, “Remuneration”, “Benefits” and more. Have your client spin the wheel and ruminate on a particular topic.
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12. Building Interview Readiness
Many professionals and students are desperate for career interventions and may just approach you for help. The biggest skill thing to practice is the interview process. A career readiness activity that will assist them is to write interview questions on Jenga blocks and have your students answer them as they build a tower.
13. Career Bingo
If you run a career program at a school, this game is sure to be a hit with students. Play career bingo with learners by handing out Bingo cards and asking them questions until someone has BINGO! This will educate students about the opportunities available to them.
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14. Career Mindmap
Encourage your students to consider what profession they are suited for by having them make a mindmap that details their interests, weaknesses, strengths, education, and more.
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15. Group Career Counseling Sessions
Hosting a group session for students who are looking to advance in their careers or change careers can be beneficial. Your clients will benefit from bouncing ideas off of their peers, listening to others’ dreams and goals, and being held accountable to action plans.
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16. What If Game
This career counseling activity is particularly useful for younger people who are about to enter the job market. Working in any industry can be challenging, but students can be made to feel more prepared for the world of work by practicing how to react to different situations. Write a few situations that learners may experience at work on flashcards. Have them think about how they would respond if one of those scenarios was thrust upon them.
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17. Professional Gratitude
If your client is already working and is looking for ways to elevate their career or garner more satisfaction out of their day-to-day, you may want to consider having them practice an attitude of gratitude. Getting bogged down in the negatives of the workplace can be all too easy. Have them practice listing a few things that they enjoy about their work.
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18. Meditation And Mindfulness
Encouraging your client to meditate will help them tap into their dreams and aspirations which will help them have a clearer picture of where they want to go in life. This will help you to guide your client toward a profession that suits them and their goals. Mindfulness will also help your client perform more optimally and maturely in the workplace.
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19. Analyzing Role Models
Another exercise that you can use during career guidance sessions is to have your client think about what they admire in their role models. This may help them pinpoint what is important to them and what they should focus on professionally.
20. Career Vision Board
Have your client create a collage of their dream job. Visualizing their goals will help them to consider the work involved in reaching them, and it will also help your clients unpack what it is that they value with regard to work.
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