Blog 14

Nathan Scarbrough

Week 14 Discussion: Brown, Chapter 18- Trends and Issues in Career Information, The Job Search, Career Development, and Career Development Programs

                This chapter provides a list of predictions regarding the future of career development and provides a rationale for why these predictions are important.  The author stresses that career counselors must keep an eye out for shifts in the direction of career information, job searches, career development, and career development programs.  He points out that the data we have thus-far is anything but research-driven.  In fact, we are years away from having enough empirical data to support our predictions, and for this reason, it is of the utmost importance to at least back up our predictions with theories, so that we have some sort of systematic practices in place.  As technology advances and our economy transitions to a global one, it becomes increasingly important for career-counselors to understand the below predictions so that they can stay ahead of the curve, and not be blindsided by the inevitable changes in the field. Our author has learned the risks of making predictions by studying the previous work of himself, Herr, Gysbers, and Zunker, all of whom were fairly accurate with their general predictions, but often off-the-mark with the more specific ones they made.   

                In terms of career information, he predicts that career information will be used more as the need for it increases in this increasingly competitive job market.  He predicts that there will be further efforts to improve the delivery of this information and the number of sources will increase.  He believes that graduate classes will put more of an emphasis on career counseling, and less on information accessing.  Finally, he guesses that there will continue to be an unfortunately small pillar of research supporting decisions made regarding career-information by relevant parties in the future.  In regards to job hunting, Brown predicts that information will become more available, and the need for experts will increase as the market gets more complex.  When Brown made predictions regarding career-counseling, he predicted that their usefulness will be more broadly recognized and there will be a greater concern over their licensure requirements.  He thinks there will be greater divergent thinking regarding the specific counseling needs of men compared to women and the needs of minorities.  He believes that the theories of Holland will continue to dominate, as the theories of Lent, Brown, Hackett, Gottfredson, and postmodern theorists will thrive (perhaps the postmodern theories will be so beneficial due to their qualitative nature and the lack of empirical data regarding career counseling).  He believes that the theories of Super and the majority of the work by Krumboltz will decline.  Finally, Brown has made some predictions regarding the future of career development planning.  He states that this field will continue to operate without a solid empirical basis.  Secondly, he states that while career-development will continue to grow, it will remain a secondary part of education in the eyes of schools due to the school reform movement having first priority.  Finally, he believes that internal programs for businesses and industries will be scaled down and outsourcing to consulting firms will increase, as businesses are tending to be more concerned with seeing direct profits from their companies expenditures and outsourcing is much more controllable.

                With this knowledge in mind, we will be a step ahead of other counselors in the field.  We will be able to predict what might happen and plan for it.  That said, the future is not written in stone, and for this reason we must all make sure we keep an eye open and our minds thinking critically so that we will be prepared to help our clients to the best of our ability.