Career Counseling for Government Employees

Career counseling can prove an effective tool to help navigating difficult decisions.

Private sector employees aren't alone in often feeling trapped in their current position or career path. Like anyone else, government employees can desire change or mobility in their careers. Career counseling, a frequently overlooked option available to all government employees, can help them improve and progress their careers. Career counseling provides direction and advice to guide employees on successfully capitalizing on career opportunities.

Benefits

Career counseling can help you feel fulfilled at work.

Career counseling ultimately helps employees navigate the changes necessary from the position they currently occupy into the position that would make them most fulfilled and useful to the parent organization. Using career counseling available to government employees can assist individuals in getting access to distance- or evening-education programs that can enhance their promotion potential, and details how to most effectively evaluate merit promotion plans. This service helps them understand and work toward the qualities necessary for advancement. Career counseling also helps assess and match skills, interests and work experiences into specific positions and job series, narrowing down opportunities into those in which employees would most enjoy working.

Types

The Career Development Quarterly identifies the most common types of career counseling open to government employees as counseling interaction, career education and experiential learning. Counseling interaction involves interactive sessions in which a counselor helps an employee develop career-related problem-solving skills; according to the Career Development Quarterly, this practice has a primarily psychological nature. Career education programs aim to educate employees about or how to perform the duties of a job and can include such programs as foreign language classes, software instruction or team-building exercises. Experiential learning relies on hands-on experience and involves the identification of skills and competencies built through employment.

Location

If you live far from city centers, virtual career counseling might be for you.

Those government employees who live or work in urban areas will likely find a wider scope of opportunities to use career counseling to its maximum potential. This doesn't mean that government employees residing in rural settings or areas with low population density are out of luck, however. Virtual counseling eliminates many of these issues and is becoming available on an increasing basis to government employees. In other cases, many departments will pay for part or all of an employee's counseling sessions or career advancement classes conducted over the Internet.

Considerations

Important distinctions exist between the opportunities available to federal employees and those available to state employees. Career counseling policies for state employees can vary widely from state to state, with most states running dedicated career mobility programs. Federal employees interested in career development should familiarize themselves with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's website (see link in Resources section). Many counseling opportunities directed specifically to those employees affected by layoffs or other changing employment conditions operate to provide assistance during special circumstances.

Expert Insight

Get active with career counseling early.

According to the National Career Development Association, the course of career development gets off track with alarming frequency. Becoming involved in career counseling and career building programs early, and staying involved with them over time rather than relying on them only after something goes awry, remains a notable and important method of reducing potential career dissatisfaction.

References

• U.S. Office of Personnel Management
• U.S. Office of Personnel Management

Resources

• U.S. Office of Personnel Management