Internationalizing career counseling: emptying our cups and learning from each other

Career Development Quarterly, Sept, 2005 by Paul J. Hartung

The symposium International Perspectives on Career Development included a plenary session that addressed career counseling in a world of limited resources. Panelists representing diverse areas of the world shared their perspectives on career counseling in their countries and the specific problems they faced. They identified common concerns and prospects for the future of cross-national career counseling in 3 domains: (a) counselor training and human resources, (b) career service delivery practices, and (c) resources and sources of support. Harnessing the energy and capital of the global career counseling community will better equip career development professionals to deal with existing limitations and realize the common goal of the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance and the National Career Development Association to internationalize career counseling.

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A university professor once traveled to visit a famous Zen master. While the master quietly served tea, the professor talked about Zen. The master poured the visitor's cup to the brim and then kept pouring. The professor watched the overflowing cup until he could no longer restrain himself. "It's overfull! No more will go in!" the professor blurted. "You are like this cup," the master replied, "How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

As vocational guidance and career counseling professionals from nations and regions around the world communicate with each other, they would do well to be mindful of the visiting professor and ready to "empty their cups" and learn from one another, because each one is a "local expert." Such a spirit of openness was shown by participants in the symposium International Perspectives on Career Development.

International Career Counseling Roundtable

The 2-day symposium included a round-table plenary session that addressed career counseling in a world of limited resources. This topic deserved spirited attention because career counseling and guidance have emerged as a worldwide enterprise with a common mission to help people manage and adapt to the psychosocial and cultural demands of work in their lives (Savickas, 2003). In today's information age of the global economy, advancing this mission grows ever more important given the constantly changing and increasingly complex world of work that we all confront and must navigate (Collin & Young, 2000; Herr, 2003).

Just as they share to a large degree a common historic mission and, to an extent, common models, methods, and materials, career counseling and guidance across nations and regions also differ significantly, as would be expected. These differences surface particularly with regard to indigenous factors such as underlying philosophy, structure and delivery of career services, public policy mandates and initiatives, prevailing socioeconomic conditions, available resources, sources of support, objectives, and training practices and standards. Special thematic issues of the International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance have begun to inform and educate the international community about some of the cross-national commonalities and differences in career counseling and guidance practice (Athanasou, 2002; Plant, 2003). Articles and sections of The Career Development Quarterly have also been devoted to these efforts (e.g., Law, 1993; Leong & Pope, 2002).

Career Counseling in Four Nations: Issues and Avenues

In a similar manner, four roundtable panelists--Fidan Korkut (Turkey), Andreea Szilagyi (Romania), Dan-Bush Bhusumane (Botswana), and Agnes Watanabe-Muraoka (Japan)--shared their perspectives as local experts on career counseling in their country and the specific problems that they face. Panelists focused their remarks to stay within a brief time allotment on key areas such as training programs and standards, career service delivery practices, resources, and sources of support. Each of the areas was considered in terms of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, barriers, and threats centered around one or more of the seven themes treated in the symposium discussion groups: career theory, assessment, intervention, technology, programs, policy, and competencies. Although presenters noted circumstances unique to their country, they collectively identified some common concerns and prospects for the future of cross-national career counseling.

Counselor Training and Human Resources

Across the four national contexts represented, without question the most significant issue raised by panelists concerned the shortage of counselor training programs and professionally trained counseling staff to deliver career services to individuals who need them. Panelists underscored the vital importance of career counseling and guidance in their countries, characterized by Watanabe-Muraoka as a sociopolitical instrument for advancing national goals. They consistently expressed that there were substantial deficits, however, in the number of quality graduate-level programs to train counseling professionals to do the necessary work. This problem persists even in countries with numerous well-developed counselor education programs that, however, often include at most a single career counseling and development course in their curricula.