Career Advisory postgraduate studies – first impressions

To advise others on developing and changing their career paths, you need to understand how people make career decisions. And you should start with yourself.

We asked our students, “When you were kids, who did you want to be when you grow up?” Their answers: teacher, journalist, postal clerk, bus driver, mechanic, or “someone who works with people in a group”… Some of them “ended up” in either soft or “hard” HR in roles / positions like coach, head of the HR department, recruitment support for people with disabilities, career advisor for foreigners. The others are involved in real estate, short-term rental, finance. To sum up: it is a very varied, interesting and mature group.

Why Career Advisory postgraduate studies?

You may ask, “Why would somebody who has many years of experience “need” such studies?” To “organize their knowledge” and to prepare for the last stage of their careers. Here are other reasons which helped the students decide to enroll (apart from the reputation of Warsaw University of Technology Business School and Career Angels):

“I want to gain new knowledge and learn about tools that I haven’t had the opportunity to use yet”
“I want to organize my knowledge and compare what I had already learnt with what I still lack”
“I have been looking for something that would allow me to get to know this market better for a long time – these studies give me this opportunity”
“My goal is to expand my knowledge in career counseling”
“I noticed that people started to believe in themselves and their skills more because of the upskilling and reskilling trends – I would like to help others on this path”
“I really wanted to learn more about career counseling so that I could help a wider range of people”
“I want to update the knowledge that I need for my everyday work”
“The knowledge obtained during these studies will help me provide support and assistance to job seekers”

On November 18, we started with lots of energy and, to the surprise of our students, in a very practical manner! The topic of the first weekend was “The Methodology of a Career Consultant” and it covered:

The competencies of an effective career consultant
Client typology
A catalog of questions necessary to diagnose client needs
The initial interview with a “prospective client”
The Code of Ethics

“The Code of Ethics” might not seem exciting, but by adding practical examples, it comes alive and it generates an opportunity to discuss constructively. One of the examples from the section “Scope and goal of the cooperation”:

“I am aware of my own career preferences and the potential bias that this entails as well as the fact that this can have a negative impact on my advice.” Why is it so important? A few examples overheard from career consultants:

“Why are you working so much? Is it worth it to sacrifice for your career?”
“Don’t risk it.”
“It doesn’t pay off to change and earn less.”