The need for effective career counseling and related research among Native Americans is striking. Census data show that Native Americans have the highest unemployment rates of any minority group with the exception of African American males. Unemployment approaches 50%, and the number of children living below the poverty level exceeds 50% on many reservations. Likewise
The Career Occupational Preference System (COPSystem) is a coordinated career guidance program consisting of three assessment instruments all keyed to eight major career clusters. The three assessment components are the COPSystem Interest Inventory (COPS), the Career Ability Placement Survey (CAPS), and the Career Orientation Placement and Evaluation Survey (COPES) and their accompanying interpretive materials. Interpretation
Career assessment involves an ongoing process of gathering information to assist clients to make career-related decisions. Useful information to gather in career assessment includes but is not limited to understanding a person’s personality, values, skills, interests, life roles, and career history. Assessment information is typically gathered via intake interviews, standardized tests and inventories, and non-standardized
Multicultural Career Counseling Checklist As societies, especially in the United States, have become more diverse, counselors are expected to be able to deliver competent services to a wide variety of clients. Such competency concerns call for measures that facilitate professionals collecting and managing the data needed for meaningful and successful interventions in cross-cultural career counseling.
A difficult task facing career counselors concerns applying abstract career theories to concrete problems presented by clients. Over the years, counselor educators have voiced concern about their trainees’ ability to accurately assess client problems and make sound clinical decisions. In practice, novice career counselors also become perplexed by the multitude of career methods and materials
Frederic Kuder published his first career interest assessment in 1939. The Kuder Preference Record was different from the other vocational assessments of the day in that it asked respondents to indicate their preferences for everyday activities rather than their occupational preferences. The 1943 version became the standard career assessment used to assist World War II
Internet career assessment is an emerging though complex endeavor based on multiple methods; it is under continuous development. This relatively new approach, which has emerged along with the rise of the Internet as an alternative communication tool, is still characterized by limited investigations. Thus, its use, though becoming gradually pervasive, is generally based on users’
Karl Ulrich Mayer describes institutional careers as the orderly flow of persons through segmented institutions. A number of scholars have pointed to occupational careers as providing the organizational blueprint for the adult life course, which begins with a period of education, followed by years of productive work (often in a series of related jobs) and
Early career theorists studied careers as a linear progression that generally corresponds to a person’s life span. They focused primarily on men who worked for one or two organizations, with a ladder of opportunities for promotion. In a typical career, the middle career stage is the point at which an individual attains a level of
A fast-track career offers advancement opportunities to top-level positions based on a series of developmental experiences provided by the organization. Stated differently, high-potential individuals are given accelerated development opportunities, with the idea of their reaching senior-management levels more quickly than those who are not on such a track. There are individual (e.g., needs, personality, education)