The Great Depression Career Counseling

During the interview, Stashia presented issues of career changed frequently as she diverted from majoring in one career path to another. She divulged in the interview that she had once listened to others and not decided on her own path. She reported changing her major, considered doing things differently if she could, and not having taken any vocational assessments that would have helped her. The writer will conceptualize interviewees barriers with theories of career counseling.

The Great Depression had a huge impact on society and many economic causes to go along with it. But, what mattered the most was how they got through it. Upton Sinclair once stated, “The remedy [the Great Depression] is to give the workers access to the means of production, and let them produce for themselves, not for others… the American Way.”

During the 1930’s, the United States of America was captivated by a economical, financial, and social depression as a result of the Stock Market crash in October of 1929. Many people were left with almost no money, no job, and great deal of debt. When elected in 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took over the White House and implemented his “New Deal” policy that established many different legislations, administrations, and agencies in efforts to bring back American jobs, money, and prosperity.

The Great Depression brought hardship to every aspect of life in the 1930’s and took almost 15 million jobs. Franklin D. Roosevelt passed a plan to fund experimental projects to provide jobs through government needs, collectively known as The New Deal. The programs created a way for unemployed, or homeless Americans rebuild their lives and country. Today we have financial aid either through the same systems or improved ideas that came from the Great Depression.

Moving forward, Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 commissioned federal revenue to create and support of secondary and postsecondary vocational training. Emphasis were placed on instruction in agriculture, home economics, and trades and industry. This act along with the demand for change and other outlets for education, open the doors for trades that prepared people for jobs. Legislation during this time contended that this was the best step moving forward to focus on skills to ensure people were workplace ready.

Throughout the years following World War I, the United States suffered from an economic panic that would have lasting effects around the globe. The Great Depression was a result poor economic strategies and ultimately, the stock market crash. President Franklin D. Roosevelt created a New Deal plan in order to guide his natin out of this panic. FDR was able to combat the issues at hand with an arsenal of new programs that would effectively aid the nation and change the role of the government for the better.

Patton and McMahon (2006) developed a systems theory framework for development of careers called the Therapeutic Framework. The system categorizes the various factors that influence the choice of career into individual factors (for both the learner who is to choose their career and their counselor), organizational factors, or environmental factors (Patton & McMahon, 2006). The system also recognizes the effect of timing on these factors; thus incorporating the aspects of past, present and future (McMahon, Forde, & Dickson, 2015).

The purpose of the NCDA is to “promote the career development of all people over the life span” (NCDA, 2015).

I interviewed Mrs. Regina Bowman, a semi-retired case manager/career counselor for the city Workforce Program, Job Link (personal communication, March 18, 2014). Mrs. Bowman spent 35 years with the city, 20 of those years at Job link and 15 years with the police department. The purpose of the interview was to discover how Mrs. Bowman selected career counseling as her profession or life’s purpose.

The most searing legacy of the depression was unemployment, which mounted steadily from the relatively low levels experienced between 1922 and 1929. The percentage of the civilian labor force without work rose from 3.2 in 1929 to 8.7 in 1930, and reached a peak of 24.9 in 1933. The estimates of unemployment amongst non-farm employees, which include the self-employed and unpaid family workers are even higher. These are horrifying figures: millions of American families were left without a bread-winner and faced the very real possibility of destitution.11

Nemko’s article is established on a personal and relatable exemplum, “a device for clarifying or simply, example”, that immediately connects to his audience – who have seemingly had this exact conversation he’s had as a career counselor (Johnson 105). He briefs us on the “saddest moments as a career counselor [] when [he] hear[s] a story like this: ‘I wasn’t a good student in high school, but I wanted to prove to myself that I can get a college diploma--I’d be the first one in my family to do it. But it’s been six years and I still have 45 units to go’” (Nemko 32). Right off the bat, Nemko gains trust through his appeal to ethos. His “saddest moments as a career counselor” tell us of his knowledge of the

For many people, finding a career that is both fulfilling and practical is a strenuous task. Fortunately, there is a plethora of different interventions, techniques, assessments, and inventories designed to aid those individuals in making the wisest career choices possible. But are any of those routes inherently better than the others? Or are all the differing options separate but equally effective? Donald Super’s Life Span Theory and John Holland’s Theory of Vocational Choice are just two of the many theories used for career counseling. Both methods are distinct in the way they approach career issues, yet despite their differences, there are some resemblances between the two theories as well. Comparing and contrasting these two theories will make it easier to see if one theory is better than the other for career counseling or if they are both equally effective.

Gysbers (2003) proposes that the value of career theories comes from providing practitioners with a framework to examine client behaviour, help understand the possible meanings of or explanations for the behaviour and subsequently, enables them to identify and respond to clients’ goals or problems. Significantly then, such theories may help explain an individual’s vocational behaviour, such as their initial career choice or later aspects of career development. This essay attempts to identify the theoretical framework that will underpin my guidance practice in the future.

Career counselling is a process that can help you with your career progression. In this guide, we will examine what career counselling entails and discover whom to look for if you want to consider trying it. We’ll also discuss who can benefits from the practice and how, before looking closer at how career counselling can be used for career progression.

Most individuals struggle at the stage of making career choices and hence they decide to go for career counselling to guide them to the right path by weighing various factors that influence a career like personality. This is where career development theories come into place, these are frameworks that guide the career counsellors in examining and explaining individuals’ career related behaviour. Each career development theory gives a certain unique way to career development and choice. As quoted in Schreuder & Coetzee (2011),” Career counsellors must understand well established and emerging career theories, their strengths and weaknesses and how to apply them to client career development and choice to be able to effectively and