High School Counselors Can Change Lives

Career readiness involves helping students develop the skills that will allow them to enter the workforce and thrive in the next step of their careers.

Career readiness helps students develop both hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills refer to knowledge or trained skills, like operating machinery or learning a trade. Soft skills refer to developing appropriate skills necessary to succeed in various work environments, such as developing a solid work ethic and good communication skills. These skills are both requirements for a slew of different career pathways.

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High schools can teach career readiness, and high school counselors are often primarily responsible for developing career readiness skills.

What Is the Role of High School Counselors in Career Readiness?

When given the right resources, counselors can:

• Help students identify their passion and find career pathways that suit their skills. For example, high school counselors can work with students to take career aptitude tests (such as those offered by Gallup or The Princeton Review) or find after-school employment.
• Assist in identifying educational or training opportunities. The past few years have seen more emphasis on getting high school students into trade school or a certification program. High school guidance counselors can help students identify post-school opportunities that are right for them.
• Point students towards resources that will enable them to better afford paid opportunities. Potential tools include scholarship databases or loan programs.

High school counselors clearly have a variety of competing responsibilities, and school districts must give guidance counselors the support they need to fulfill these responsibilities.

How Can High School Counselors Teach Career Readiness?

There are many pathways that high school counselors can explore with students.

• High school counselors should know the classes or training opportunities that a student can take.
• Counselors should look for opportunities to bring in local businesses that can provide career advice for students. Businesses and speakers can help students learn specific stories about how they can advance their careers and give critical insight into in-demand skills.
• Counselors should help students develop the skills necessary to get a good job, including polishing their resumes and working on their job interview skills. Counselors must learn these skills, learn how to teach them to students and identify other tools that can help students develop the necessary material to apply for jobs.
• Counselors should help students conduct an honest SWOT analysis that helps them identify areas for improvement, particularly as the student considers what skills they need to improve from a career perspective.

Above all else, high school counselors must be flexible, compassionate, and resourceful. Each student will have different needs, experiences, and available resources. The challenge for high school counselors is that they must help students develop a customized plan that helps them develop the career readiness skills they will need. High school counselors are typically deeply passionate and caring people, but they require support from their school district to properly prepare students for their next steps.

Career Readiness Standards

Shifting local, state, and federal landscapes can present major challenges when meeting current career readiness standards. For example, due to ongoing labor problems, policymakers have placed a greater emphasis on career readiness and getting students into the workforce. This changing landscape has resulted in increased funding and more demands on guidance counselors to provide career readiness skills.  

It is difficult to make definitive statements about current career readiness standards, as the standards in different states vary wildly. As such, you'll have to check with local leaders, including your high school administration, to determine these standards. Other resources for determining these standards include:

• Examining state and local websites
• Connecting with other high school counselors who have experience in this area
• Working with local online communities of counselors or career readiness professionals
• Contacting local or statewide workforce development organizations

Meeting these standards will be your next challenge. Fortunately, many resources — including local employers, workforce investment boards, and state agencies — likely have the tools to ensure that your students can develop the necessary career readiness standards. These resources will vary by location, but with appropriate research and coordination, a high school counselor can develop a comprehensive portfolio of resources that will allow them to meet modern challenges.

A high school counselor is responsible for developing formal career-readiness resources for young students. However, to be successful, counselors must have the right technology to be most effective at helping students improve their career readiness. Therefore, schools must invest in technological resources, such as staffing and graduation pathways programs. Doing so can enable a school to prepare for the future by ensuring they are ready to meet the challenges of today.

Are you seeking the technology necessary to improve your school's career readiness programming? Contact us today to learn more about how Education Advanced can help you meet your educational goals.