Career counseling is quintessentially, counseling that focuses on choosing a career, career planning, facing career related change etc. Career advices on the other hand are advices that can help you plan your career. The differences between these two are many. First of all career advice are typically one way; i.e. they are given to you without any major input from your side. Career counseling on the other hand usually involves various psychological and aptitude tests, personal discussions etc. Career advices are also available on the internet and in many books as well. Such advices are not targeted at you specifically but are general purpose and suited for most people.
Although there are differences, career advices and career counseling are very similar in many ways. Let's take a closer look at the similarities between career advice and career counseling:
- Similarity of Purpose
Both career advice and career counseling serve similar purposes i.e. to guide and help you in dealing with career related matters. These can be making decision about career line or job profile, searching for right college / university, looking for job, dealing with job change etc.
- Similarity in Content
The result of career counseling i.e. the decisions taken, are more or less same as the career advices that you can find on internet or in books. The difference is in case of counseling, where you can be sure, that the suggestion or advice is the right one for you. Also as the career counselor has the relevant information about you and is familiar with your specific situation he can tailor the advice according to your specific needs. But in any case if you look, it is more than likely that you can find a career advice suggesting more or less same thing that the career counselor has advised. The career advices are all given in career advice books, on the internet, etc. The importance of a counselor is not that he or she gives a unique advice but is in giving an advice that is right for you personally and also help you to take a decision by yourself.
- Source of the Advice
Though not always, in many cases career advices are given by people who are career counselors themselves or are working in a similar field. Many of the books that you'll find on career advice are written by people who either were career counselors at one time or another or have similar qualifications.
In case of internet, most of the time, the matter is much murkier and the sources of career advice are much less reliable. Still most of the advices on the internet either originates from a career counselor or are suggestions based on peoples own experiences.
Overall we see that although career advice and career counseling are very different things, there are similarities between them as well. In general career counseling is appropriate when the decision you are planning to take is of major importance and simple career advice does not seem effective.
