Blog Post #7

Chapter 8 of Brown's text is my personal favorite to date of our class readings. I found this chapter to be the most accessible and useful for our future work as counselors. I even pulled out some items that I will be able to use in my current job, such as Arizona's State University's Interest Profiler and more in-depth information about how to use O*NET. I know that our Career Counselor's use O*NET almost exclusively to help students narrow down their job prospect choices. One useful item that was not mentioned in the text are the state labor market resource guides. I use the PA Career Resource Guide (http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=809063&mode=2) frequently in my job, however I do not know if every state produces this guide.

Another piece from this chapter that I found very applicable was the section on work experience programs. Brown defines work experience programs as programs that help "students understand various types of work, work settings, tools and equipment used by workers, demands placed on workers, and similar factors. General work experience programs are designed to assist students in the development of attitudes and skills that are not narrowly vocational in nature, including punctuality, dependability, acceptance of supervisors, interpersonal relations, and similar characteristics that apply to all work situations" (Brown, 2012, p. 187-188). The above skills are often identified as soft skills and are as, if not more, important than the actual job skills needed to do a particular job. Many people today lose their jobs because they simply cannot get along with others. We need to emphasize to today's students that the soft skills they develop through school will often help secure and maintain their job, or if not utilized appropriately, can lead to them losing their jobs. I feel that the teaching of these soft skills should begin as early as elementary school and they should continue to be taught and reinforced through high school and college. I will often tell students that after college it is more important that they simply get a job versus trying to find their dream job right away. Finding a job, proving that you can show up to work on time, get along with your coworkers, etc. is often what leads to a better second job that is most likely in your field of experience.

While I highly value programs such as O*NET, I think that these programs need to be used in conjunction with applicable activities such as career days, job shadowing, simulations, etc. Often students think they know what it is they want to do, but when they hear that a nurse actually has to deal with sick people and it is not like being on an episode of Grey's Anatomy, they think twice. I met with a girl once who said that all her life she wanted to be an X-Ray Technician, but when she used her job shadowing day at school to spend time with one, she realized they spent most of their days in a dark room alone with the patient she knew she could never be happy in that line of work. I hope that as we continue to see the impact that career preparation has on our future generations that we allow students to spend more time outside of the classroom, gaining real world hands-on experience. As the push for highly skilled workers continues, our students will need as much hands-on training as they can get to prepare them for tomorrow's competitive job market.

Brown, D. (2012). Career Information, career counseling, and career development (10^th ed.). New York: Pearson Education, Inc.