I really enjoyed the elementary school career workshop. I think elementary school students can learn a lot from having adults come in to their school dressed up in their career attire and explaining their careers. I liked the hands-on activity of making ooblek and acting like an elementary school student. I was part of the higher education career workshop group who also presented last class. I thought it was really important that both groups who presented focused on helping students discover what their interests are in order to find a career that will fit them well.
In chapter 11, Brown (2012) discusses employability skills and placement services for the global job search. Many Americans are looking for jobs in other countries now and in the future (Brown, 2012, p. 234). However, I think that Americans need to stay working in the United States of America. The more international jobs that Americans take then the less American jobs there will be. We need more jobs in this country in order to maintain a strong economy and to stop the recession.
Job clubs are used to help individuals with the job-search process (Brown, 2012, p. 236). Job clubs give support and encouragement to members and also use role-playing to help them with their interview skills (Brown, 2012, p. 236). This would be really helpful for me. I had mock interviews through career services at my undergraduate college, however; having support and role-playing interview skills with peers would have been extremely beneficial.
The first step of executing the job search is taking an inventory of self and skills (Brown, 2012, p. 237). This can be accomplished by completing the FOCUS 2 self-assessments that we presented in the higher education group career workshop. These assessments include the work interest assessment, personality assessment, skills assessment, values assessment, and leisure interest assessment (Tirpak & Schlosser, 2013). After completing these assessments then a person can understand his/her values and interests better.
There are two different resumes that were discussed: the functional resume format and the standard chronological format (Brown, 2012, p. 241). I had never heard of these differences before. I agree that education needs to be listed first and then work experience (Brown, 2012, p. 241). I went to the Experiential Learning and Career Management center earlier this semester. The career counselor I saw told me to write a career summary statement instead of an objective on my resume. She said that the career summary statement would keep my resume original and, therefore; more likely for an employer to read it. The career summary statement includes a statement about your experience, your skills, your strengths, and trying to sell yourself. I had never heard of a career summary statement before the career counselor told me about it.
In chapter 16, Brown (2012) discusses program evaluation and evidence-based practice. It is important to evaluate a program in order to see if it is effective. There are a lot of budget cuts occurring in schools. Therefore, programs in schools need to be shown to be effective in order to have the most benefit for the students. Evaluating programs can then lead to improving programs to make them more effective (Brown, 2012, p. 349).
After reading about evidence-based practices, then I was thinking about clinical psychology. It is important to use evidence-based therapies with your clients. That way you know that the therapy you are using has been shown to be effective with clients who are suffering with the psychological disorder that your client is suffering with. Managed care is also in favor of evidence-based practices. Managed care is more likely to pay for evidence-based therapies than any other therapies. However, it is difficult to have evidence-based therapies because that requires psychologists to provide therapy by using a manual and not deviating from the manual. Clients are unique individuals that might need slight variations of a specific therapy. However, evidence-based therapies do not allow for that variation. Evidence-based practices must have ecological validity (Brown, 2012, p. 350).
References
Brown, D. (2012). Career information, career counseling, and career development (10th ed.). New York: Pearson Education, Inc.
Tirpak, D. M., & Schlosser, L. Z. (2013). Evaluating FOCUS-2's effectiveness in enhancing first-year college students' social cognitive career development. The Career Development Quarterly, 61(2), 110-123. doi: 10.1002/j.2161-0045.2013.00041
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