96149 - Career Counseling

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course, students will know the most relevant theories of career development, and some methods used in career interventions, with particular concern to career counseling.

Course contents

The course has two main objectives:

• 1-presenting the main theoretical to career development;
• 2-introducing different career intervention's modalities (main principles and tecniques): career counseling, coaching and outplacement .

Specifically, the course aims to improve the students' knowledges about the following contents:

• How the current labour market uncertaintly impacts on career development;
• Interpersonal differences in career self-management and competencies;
• Career counselling: aims and techniques;
• Career interventions in organizations: outplacement and coaching.

Readings/Bibliography

Career Development Theories

Hall, D. G. (2001). Career in and out organizations. SAGE Publications, Incorporated https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unibo/detail.action?docID=996728&query=career+choice

Prior, R. & Bright, J (2011). Complexity, Uncertainty and Career Development Theory (pp. 13-23), in The Chaos Theory of Careers A New Perspective on Working in the Twenty-First Century, Routledge

Career Interventions

Gysbers, N. C., Heppner, M. J., & Johnston, J. A. (2014). Career counseling: Holism, diversity, and strengths. Wiley. Following chapters: Chapter 1, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12.

Halil Bader Arslan (2005). Where Can Outplacement Be Placed? Offering a Broader Role to Assistance: A Theoretical Approach. Problems and Perspectives in Management, 3(3)

Knowles, S. (2021). Positive Psychology Coaching. Springer. Following chapters: Chapters 1, 4, and 5

All the references (ebook and articles) are available through UNIBO library sources.

Teaching methods

The course combines traditional lectures with in-group discussions, case studies analyses and practical exercises.

The course is designed to be very interactive, based on students’ active participation. Therefore, students are requested to attend systematically all the lectures.

Exchange students, aiming to choose this course for their learning agreement, should carefully consider – in their own interest – that they are requested to attend the full course.

Assessment methods

Students should:

1. contribuite to a survey (collecting at least 10 questionnaire and discussing the results)

2. writing a reaction paper (from 3000 to 5000 words).

The final individual reaction paper aims to discuss how a career intervention (career counseling, coaching and outplacement) can support people and/or organizations to face with career uncertainty. Students should: a) focus on a modality of career intervention (career counseling, coaching and outplacement); b) explain which emerging career needs it is able to accomplish. The description of the needs should be based on previous literature and the results of the survey; c) suggest the most effective modalities (approaches, tecniques, tools…) to deliver the selected intervention.

The grading scale is from 0 to 30, 18 being the minimum passing grade.

Teaching tools

Powerpoint slides for lectures; video contents for lectures; Scientific papers; guided discussions and exercises

Office hours

See the website of Rita Chiesa