From Vocational Decision Making to Career Building: Blueprint, Real Games, and School Counseling

Abstract

School counseling's foundations developed from vocational decision-making models. As schools, the workplace, and career development change, so does the need for school counselors to demonstrate leadership in helping students prepare for the future. As D. E. Redekopp (personal communication, November 13, 2002) stated, Increasingly, career development is about leadership. It's about the personal leadership required to take action, take risks, and learn new skills. It's also about the leadership required to help others develop, grow, and learn. Creating things that don't yet exist is now part of career development, not just choosing among existing options. Preparedness for an environment that does not yet exist is key to adaptability and leadership--therefore, it's key to career management. The new knowledge economy is changing the way people work. The very notion of is shifting dramatically as workers increasingly seek meaning, purpose, and fulfillment from their work roles. With growing frequency, career is viewed as something every human has for a lifetime (Gysbers, 1997). According to R. E. Straby (personal communication, October 31, 2002), Work is now defined not by occupational rifles or categories, but by skills and values. Effective career builders know how to shape and build their careers project by project. This is a new competency, still largely unrecognized by most adults in the workforce. As a result, a new paradigm is needed to help students make informed career choices and gain the necessary employability and self-management skills. This article describes the characteristics of the evolving workplace and offers a career-building focus to help students learn the skills they now need to become healthy, self-reliant citizens, who are able to prosper in rapidly changing labor markets, and maintain balance between life and work roles. THE CHANGING WORKPLACE At the beginning of the 21st century, the workplace of the knowledge era is different from that of the 20th century (Cappelli, 1999; Feller & Walz, 1996). Notions of self-employment and working for customers have replaced working for a boss. Following established orders and procedures is now balanced with encouragement to invent new solutions to get the job done and to quickly serve customers. Responsibility only for one's job has been replaced by pressure to be a good team player able to help the team continuously learn and improve. Respect, formerly accorded to position or rifle, is now earned by anyone at any organizational level on the basis of contribution, commitment to learning, and a willingness to help others improve. Table 1 provides a comparison of characteristics of the old and new workplace. CAREER DEVELOPMENT IMPLICATIONS OF THE NEW ECONOMY Small companies and microbusinesses are the fastest growing category of companies, and they have the greatest failure rate (Pink, 2001). Larger companies are being merged, downsized, split, redesigned, or purchased. Job security is no longer a guarantee for anyone at any level in any organization. Workers need to prepare themselves for periodic job loss and the inevitable loss of income (Carlson, 2002). Consequently, workers need to follow occupational and industrial trends, observe job growth or decline information, and position themselves to respond to these trends. As greater numbers of workers seek more satisfaction, stimulation, respect, money, and freedom, they are brokering portions of their time and skills to multiple organizations in creative new work packages. As a result, the emphasis on obtaining and keeping jobs has changed. To succeed, self-employed workers in atypical, contract work arrangements need to have specialized skills, including an awareness of their value to specific employers and the ability to market themselves effectively. Their success demands a high level of self-knowledge and self-confidence. Recent projections suggest that new labor market entrants are likely to experience a succession of work roles, with 12 to 25 jobs in up to five industry sectors in their working lives (Alberta Learning, 1999). …

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