Week 7 Chapter 8

           I agree as many others have stated that discussing the attractors in class was helpful.  In discussing the attractors I found that the examples given were also helpful in better understanding each attractor and how to better recognize the attractors as they apply to individuals.  I think that it is important to understand the attractors that apply to us individually so that we can also better understand the attractors as they apply to potential clients to that we can help them with their career development.  If we can understand our client’s attractors better then we can help them recognize the attractors and as they apply to their life and career development.  If there is a cycle that is not warranted we as counselors can help recognize them with the client and perhaps stop the cycle.

           Brown’s (2012) chapter 8 provided information about using information to facilitate career development.  Brown (2012) states that occupational information includes educational, occupational, and psychosocial facts related to work and it comes from governmental sources that focuses mostly on individual jobs.  I think that this is worth noting because as clients come to career counselors many are looking for a job or new career but they need to be informed about different types of occupations and the educational experiences that are needed to obtain certain occupations.  This leads to the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) that has experience requirements, occupational requirements, worker requirements, worker characteristics, occupation characteristics, and occupation specifics (Brown, p. 181, 2012).  As a career counselor it is important to understand where to find occupational information and how to use and interpret it so that it can be useful to clients.

           I remember is high school that we had a career day every year.  They were somewhat structured and informational as described by Brown (2012).  Before my high school had a career day we would fill out a paper where we would pick our top five career choices.  With those choices the school would try to have us attend informational sessions for our top three choices.  There were professionals that came and would talk to us about the field that the work in and answer any questions they could.  I attended a psychology one and the professional that came was the school district’s psychologist.  I think that it was unfortunate that year after year I still had similar interests and would pick the same topics.  It was also unfortunate that they had the same professionals come year after year and provide similar information when I would have like and would of found it more informative if there were different professionals that would come and give me different options with a specific interest, like psychology.

Reference

Brown, D. (2012).  Career information, career counseling, and career development

 (10th ed.). New York: Pearson Education, Inc.