Career Counseling

Development of Career Counseling

The theoretical underpinnings of career counseling were first recorded around 360 B.C. when Plato observed in The Republic that different jobs require different types of workers for optimal performance. Today we regard this as obvious; the jobs of elementary school teacher, truck driver, opera singer, and accountant each require a different set of skills and interests.

Frank Parsons formalized this theory of the relation between people and jobs in the late 19th century. He wrote that effective career placement requires knowledge of the special talents of the worker, the requirements of various occupations, and the relations between these sets of knowledge. Over time Parsons's ideas have been codified into the person-environment fit model and trait and factor counseling. The overlapping disciplines of counseling psychology, vocational psychology, and career counseling emerged from this beginning.

Three crises, World Wars I and II and the Great Depression, helped shape career counseling. Prior to [Page 1430]World War I, French scholars Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon developed a test to measure cognitive ability. Their work paved the way for modern intelligence tests. Entry into World War I suddenly confronted the United States with the need to place hundreds of thousands of workers into suitable jobs. Using the Binet-Simon approach as a starting point, the U.S. Army developed a series of tests (e.g., the Army Alpha and Army Beta) to measure cognitive aptitudes. Scores of these tests were used to place military recruits into suitable jobs. This work developed and validated a model of vocational placement that has been a key component of career counseling for over 90 years.

The Great Depression focused attention on the nation's workforce and provided another stimulus to the development of career counseling. Under the leadership of Donald G Paterson at the University of Minnesota, the Minnesota Employment Stabilization Research Institute (MESRI) undertook a decade of research on the optimal relation of workers to jobs. MESRI research demonstrated that workers perform better and are less likely to quit or be terminated when placed in occupations that match their interests and aptitudes. The MESRI also developed an extensive library of aptitude tests for use in job placement. MESRI research demonstrated unequivocally that skilled career counseling using a trait-and-factor approach produces beneficial results.

The entry of the United States into World War II again created a need to assign millions of workers to jobs in an efficient manner. The career counseling procedures and instruments developed and validated by the MESRI were applied in the most massive application of career counseling in history.

Following the war, the GI Bill enabled veterans to enter colleges and universities in unprecedented numbers. This created a strong need for career counseling services in those institutions. An even larger number of veterans sought civilian jobs. This created a demand for career counseling services for civilians and stimulated the development of the United States Employment Service.

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