Chapters 11 and 16

       I didn't find chapters 11 and 16 to be the most interesting chapters of the book, but there were a few points that I found noteworthy.

      First I like their emphasis on evaluating how effective a program is after the fact. I think there is a habit of using programs in schools because they sound good or effective. Sometimes when these programs are properly evaluated they show mediocre or poor results. Probably the best cases of this would be the "just say no" campaign with drugs and abstinence only education. Just because something sounds good does not mean that it is effective, so program evaluation is important (Brown, 2012)

            There was one quote from Brown (2012) that I enjoyed: “Generally speaking, programs or interventions based on postmodern philosophy should be evaluated using qualitative designs and programs or interventions rooted in logical positivism should be evaluated using methods rooted in this philosophy.” This kind of seemed like a no brainer to me. There isn’t really anything quantitative to a postmodern theory, such as chaos theory. If there was, I’m sure there’d be some very crazy math like game theory analyses done by Bruce Bueno de Mesquito. 

            I never really thought before reading Chapter 11 how stressful the job search must be for individuals that have lost a job. I can think of just my own experiences and how stressed out I got just applying for an internship in my Clinical Pysch program, which is silly because everyone usually gets one. So taking the stress of finding a job in a bad economy with a low self-esteem from being let go compounded by feeling pressure to either support yourself or even a family monetarily must be a horrible predicament. 

I think just reading this chapter made me realize how companies should emphasize having career counselors in Human Resources to provide career counseling, emotional support and resources for individuals that may be let go. I understand that it’s difficult for companies to afford this convenience, and when times are tough career counseling can be on the chopping block (as outlined in Chapter 16 for schools), however I think just having such resources would be good all around for morale for a company’s employees. Having such resources would show that a company cares for the well being of their employees, even if they are no longer with the company. It’s a person-centered orientation that I think in the long run would boost productivity.

            My last comment is something of a criticism of the author. This book was updated in 2012. Now, certain fields can get away with minor updates. Writers of algebra textbooks can get away with few updates, as there probably haven’t been too many discoveries in the past 100 years that would impact high school students. However, when an author is updating a book in a field like career counseling, which is affected by our modern economy, it is necessary to stay up to date. The résume in Chapter 11 that is from 1999 looks horribly out of date and the author should have taken the time to update this section according to modern expectations for résumes.

References

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