The prevalence of remote working gives career professionals more options to deliver services and reach clients beyond their immediate vicinity. Here are resources to support professionals who provide online career counselling.
Building Trust: Strategies for Remote Counseling Customer Satisfaction (FasterCapital) [Blog]
While this piece focuses on therapeutic relationships, it offers points that are applicable to career counsellors such as using empathy in digital communication, safeguarding client information online, techniques for effective virtual engagement and tailoring remote services to diverse needs.
Online Career Counselling Guide (Prometheus) [Guide]
This guide serves as an introduction to the concept of online counselling. It covers details of online counselling, the main requirements for career counsellors, best practices, advice and tips, working with different target groups, and the main challenges of delivering online guidance (such as establishing trust between the counsellor and the client remotely).
Online Counselling: An Essential Guide (Sarah Worley-James) [Book]
This book explores the practical and technical requirements, and relational issues of online counselling. It discusses video, audio and text-based counselling, using vivid vignettes and case examples. The transition from in-person to virtual counselling, set up and equipment, contracts, data storage and risk are discussed.
Tips for Effective Remote Coaching (Deirdre E. O.) [LinkedIn post]
Customizing coaching approaches, using visual aids and interactive tools, regular check-ins, and balancing the provision of support and accountability with clients are among the suggestions offered for career coaches.
Virtual Career Counselling Support: Ethical Reflections from Career Counsellors (Canadian Journal of Career Development) [Article]
Counselling from a distance has become a recent phenomenon since the COVID-19 pandemic. The importance for practitioners to be trained in ethical requirements is pointed out. In this article, stories from 27 career counsellors were collected before the pandemic. The manner and merits of using modalities of distance intervention, whether using videoconferencing, telephone or email, are explored.
Virtual Career Services is Here to Stay: Thoughts on Managing the Transition (Gretchen Heaton) [LinkedIn post]
Gretchen Heaton is Associate Vice Provost, Career and Professional Success, at the University of New Hampshire. She designed a comprehensive virtual career services program for The American Women’s College. Here she shares short and long-term recommendations based on her experience. She also lists various online platforms to support virtual career coaching sessions.
What are some effective online tools and platforms for delivering career counseling? (LinkedIn) [Community advice]
Everyday career professionals share advice in this resource. Topics covered are video conferencing, online assessments, e-learning platforms, online portfolios and social media.
Resources to use with clients in virtual settings
Careers Advice Toolkit (WorldSkills UK) [Toolkit]
This digital Careers Advice Toolkit is geared to support young people with employability skills and careers information. Practitioners can deliver lessons as bitesize pieces of content or find inspiration for career curriculum and other activities.
CAREERinsite: Online Career Planning Tools (Government of Alberta) [Tools]
Designed as a guide for career planning, this resource offers various exercises and activities related to exploring interests, career options and comparing occupations to aid with decision-making.
Internet Sites for Career Planning (National Career Development Association) [Lists]
The various online resources listed in this collection touch on self-assessment, general occupational information, industry and occupation-specific information, education topics, employment trends, job search and special populations.
O*NET’s Interest Profiler (O*NET) [Tool]
O*NET’s Interest Profiler is a series of career exploration tools that can help clients discover work activities and occupations that would interest them.
Skills for Success – Assessment and training tools (Government of Canada) [Tools]
Career counsellors, training providers and employers can find relevant tools for assessing and upgrading skills. Users can filter the list based on skills (from communication to problem solving), tool type (assessment or training) and location (online or in-person).
Additional resources
- Empowering Career Development: The Role of Technology Tools (Career Professionals of Canada) [Article]
- How can you build strong relationships with clients in a remote work environment? (LinkedIn) [Community Advice]
- Guide: How to Succeed at a Virtual Hiring Event (Indeed) [Article]
