Dear Andronikos, I was a career guidance officer apart from teaching Biology, I head a team of Career officers. We have been evolving from career counsellor to career adviser to career guidance officer. This is due to the limited counselling training opportunities, in which we cannot use the term 'counsel'.

By experience, our clients (mostly our college students) need to know what personality they have, what interests they have, which subjects they like, what kind of career they wanted to be, what kind of career their parents wanted them to be, and what sort of jobs are available. in the country. The key point is we guide them in their choices so that they could choose their career with informed decisions. We always remind students not to follow their friends' choices of careers

As a career guidance officer, we need to always have a positive mind. Don't start telling its the end of the world. We need to keep abreast of whats going on in the job world. And the most important thing (which sometimes a bit tiring) is networking. The more networks we have, the more opportunities we can share with the students.

I also think that career counselors/coaches have to be able to be supportive, and able to help students/clients identify their strengths, and weaknesses as well a challenges and barriers. As a career services professional I am also in a position of being able to support the clients i work with by helping provide them with encouragement, but also asking the hard questions and pushing them to discover the answers.

Many of the students and alumni I work with "know" what they want or need to do, but they often are looking for someone to "tell" them what the answer is. It is my belief that it is part of my responsibility to help them discover what they already know.

As Fatimah mentioned it is also critical that we guide our clients through the process of gaining a better understanding of their values, skills and interests, as well as share information and resources so that they can make well informed decisions using all of the available tools and resources.

Good advisors also should have a good understanding of the economic and workplace trends. You might find some useful information by checking the National Association of Colleges and Employers website (see link below)

https://www.naceweb.org/

Alice and Fatimah thank you for your answers. However, all aspects mentioned above refer to counselors' attitudes and practice. Most of them seem to be essential for counselors' work but I am interested more in the specific characteristics, personality traits of adequate and helpful career counselors as well as the training practices or techniques you think can help career counseling trainees develop to good counselors.

Good question: Specific to your question, counsellors should profile their clients and know all critical factors about their current clientele; understanding the ever changing industry and job expectations (i.e currency, context and relevance); and skill wise, counsellors need to be aware that not all clients can think independently, based on their abilities and how long they struggled with the their counselling issue and will need a helping hand or "lets walk together kind of approach".

Thank you Tricia for your complete and thorough answer. I am aware of and in agreement with you on all these basic skills and attitudes a career counsellor should have to be efficacious especially in times of crisis and massive social difficulties. Despite that there are some common certain skills such as communication skills, self-awareness, career evaluation and development competencies, management of career programmes and deep knowledge of career theories serving as fundamental standards for career counselling in a global level I totally agree with you however that each country develops its own practices and has its own unique needs. As regards to counselling skills I find it appropriate in practice and theory as well for a career counselling trainee to have an adequate level of training in counselling and various aspects of general psychology, pedagogy and sociology as well. That background can support counselors to develop and provide their clients-counselees with proper services helping them to design their careers as well as possible.

Many thanks for your contribution to this important issue.

Best regards!

Andronikos