Career counseling with children and adolescents compared to adults
• Children
• Begins in preschool years and becomes more direct in elementary school
• Programs include the following emphases: awareness, experiential activities, choice, career information, and career opportunities and education
• Adolescents
• Career guidance activities should include the exploration of work opportunities and students’ evaluation of their own strengths and weaknesses in regard to possible future careers
• Often includes formal career assessments.
• Adults
• Differential approach
• Developmental approach
• Similarities
• Focus on the career information
• Take into account the person’s developmental level
• With children, career work is more informational in nature
• With adolescents, more information about matching interests to possible careers is provided
• With adults, career interests, skills, and values are all taken into account, along with understanding the influence of environmental factors.
• Helping adults differentiate between career choices also is emphasized more than it is with adolescents