Counseling involves giving the professional talk to an individual to help in a particular life aspect either by advising or recommending from experience. There are several challenges that individuals encounter in life ranging from professional aspects, social to religious issues and therefore need to share thoughts with an expert or someone who can walk them through the challenges. Considering people are of different personalities and temperaments, an approach that was successful in a counseling session with someone possibly with the same problem may not work out with a current client with regards to professional counselors. There are therefore several theories of counseling and strategies for approaching the career and profession aspect; experts in this field including Super, Holland, Gottfredson, and Krumboltz have come up with several perspectives of conducting the counseling sessions basing on different aspects of human life (Cragan, et a., 2012).
Career counseling is one of the major elements in the current global economy where every individual is keen on the best field to venture, a field of study that seems marketable in the world business economy. It is a misconception to believe that one profession is superior to another, in as much as there are prime professional fields in the economy today where the industries require more skills (Miller and Miller, 2013). The notion in colleges is general because of unemployment as one the challenges in the current global market; students are joining universities, therefore, develop anxiety and worry on career choice with regards to misconceptions of marketable courses that lead to readily available job opportunities. There is, therefore, no time for deep thought and self-knowledge on individual capabilities and temperaments that have huge influences on the success of a professional in the respective field of work. Career counseling is thus necessary today; professional counselors, therefore, use several theories to address these issues including Social Cognitive Career Theory that bases on development principles of an individual.
Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) explains three major elements relating to career preparation in a person how an individual develops profession from primary education, making of choices at a level in the school life and then achievement of the same academic and career goals (Bandura, 2014). The theory points out the influence that values, abilities, the environment, and interests have to every individual despite their diversity depending on different natural make ups of people and upbringing. Gail Hackett, Steven Brown, and Robert Lent base this theory on a social cognitive theory of development regarding psychosocial functioning involving academic performance, organizational development, and health behavior. The psychological aspects connect with cognition and motivation of an individual in the growth and development stages in life affecting abilities and interests hence career choice.
The theory brings out career aspect through three major elements interlinking each other; self-efficacy beliefs, outcome expectations, and goals. According to the authors, self-efficacy mainly defines an individual's capabilities, what a person feels confident in accomplishing; for instance, a person may feel more comfortable and confident in performing scientific tasks and solving mathematical problems other than when it comes to social sciences, in explaining theories. Physiological makeup, social persuasion because of the environment of growth have a lot in determining the self-efficacy of a person. Outcome expectations, on the other hand, entails beliefs about consequences that one expects in performing certain tasks, and therefore self-efficacy, and outcome expectations determine the amount of effort an individual in a particular job.
According to SCCT people set goals according to their beliefs and risk measure, these goals help to maintain a particular type of behavior irrespective of the positive or negative outcome. Nevertheless, failure or success in achieving the goals can alter or confirm thus build confidence on a person with regards to self-efficacy and outcome expectations (Bandura, 2014).
Social Cognitive and Career theory examine primary aspects in an individual's life that determine decisions affecting the choice of career. The method makes it possible to explain different interests of the various people in different fields of study as well as explain why at some point one decides to drop a career that was an area of interest a few years back. SCCT defines success in a career of choice depends on capabilities, interests, and satisfaction of an individual in it more than environmental influence in as much as the same social environment have an impact on benefits.
Communication
In establishing effective relationship with a client in the counseling profession, proper mode, and style of communication is critical. Effective communication entails the sender passing information and receiving positive feedback from the other party; to achieve the purpose of communication for instance in counseling where counselors need to establish a close personal relationship with a client, building rapport is primary (Parvanta, 2011).
In addition to this, recognizing and respecting individual preferences and differences is important in establishing an effective relationship. There is importance in taking the time to talk with a client over general life aspects and be able to gauge their individual line of thought and perspectives on various aspects of life to avoid offending them while in the conversation. Using open communication, being positive and agreeing with their views, listening effectively, giving the client time to talk when they need to, and giving empathy are among other several strategies in establishing and maintaining the relationship with a customer (Cragan, et al., 2012). The active relationship goes a long way in helping a counselor achieve goals of the counseling session.
Empathy is one essential element in career counseling that guides usually forget the importance. According to Bandura, (2014), a client may ignore the content of the counseling session, activity and actions during the time spent together will surely not forget how a counselor made them feel. After establishing a line of thought of a client, likes, preferences, and differences; an advisor should strive to support their side to build a rapport, set a firm ground for starting off the session that might involve objecting and contrasting some of the client's ideas. How a customer perceives thoughts and advice from a counselor, whether negatively or positively largely depends on the approach. It is, therefore, important, to begin with making them feel good about themselves, and they are on the right career track.
Rapport refers to the general likeness between two people that develops a kind of trust. Confidence is critical when dealing especially with a client because the ultimate goal is to convince and thus sell ideas, services and help improve life and experience of the customer. In building rapport with a client; finding common ground, smart dressing although depends on the occasion and meeting place, empathy that involves recognizing a customer's emotion, and mirroring that entails adjusting one owns language, as well as nonverbal signs to match a client's. Building strong positive rapport that helps in achieving goals of a communication involve all these techniques among many others depending on the type of client and kind of conversation.
References
Bandura, A. (2014). A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Cragan, J, Kasch, R. & Wright, D. W., (2012). Communication in small groups: Theory, process, skills. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Miller, S., & Miller, P. A. (2013). Core Communication: Skills and processes. Littleton, Colo: Interpersonal Communications, Inc.
Parvanta, C. F. (2011). Essentials of public health communication. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
