In the frame of PROMETHEUS project, we hold interviews with career counselors from Greece in order to gather useful information regarding the career counseling, its challenges, what skills and competences it requires from the career counselors and much more information.
Our first interview was with mr. Kassas Petros, co-owner of “LAB” – an organization from the private sector that offers career counseling services.
“Career counseling as a procedure is quite widespread and recognized in Greece, but as a profession is not as popular as it should be. The main cause for that is the fact that there are hundreds of career guidance tests, but they are not officially evaluated for their validity and reliability. This leads to a distortion of career counseling.
So, the main challenge we have to deal with is to convince the interested parties (students, parents, stc.) for the necessity of career counseling as well as to prove to them its validity and reliability. This can be achieved only through the high quality of the career counseling services.
In reference to online career counseling services, in my opinion the necessary skills that a counselor should acquire have to do with communication and elementary knowledge of using online platforms. But, regarding the challenges for online career counseling services, there is a significant difference from the “traditional” services: it is even harder to communicate them with the interested parties (students, parents, etc). Reliability of the online platform is also another issue, similar to the one with the reliability of the career guidance tests.
As a key point of career counseling, I think that a career counselor should have the will to truly help his/her clients to succeed in their lives. This requires that the career counselor realizes the economic, social and physiological extensions of the profession.”
Our first interview was with mr. Kassas Petros, co-owner of “LAB” – an organization from the private sector that offers career counseling services.
“Career counseling as a procedure is quite widespread and recognized in Greece, but as a profession is not as popular as it should be. The main cause for that is the fact that there are hundreds of career guidance tests, but they are not officially evaluated for their validity and reliability. This leads to a distortion of career counseling.
So, the main challenge we have to deal with is to convince the interested parties (students, parents, stc.) for the necessity of career counseling as well as to prove to them its validity and reliability. This can be achieved only through the high quality of the career counseling services.
In reference to online career counseling services, in my opinion the necessary skills that a counselor should acquire have to do with communication and elementary knowledge of using online platforms. But, regarding the challenges for online career counseling services, there is a significant difference from the “traditional” services: it is even harder to communicate them with the interested parties (students, parents, etc). Reliability of the online platform is also another issue, similar to the one with the reliability of the career guidance tests.
As a key point of career counseling, I think that a career counselor should have the will to truly help his/her clients to succeed in their lives. This requires that the career counselor realizes the economic, social and physiological extensions of the profession.”
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
