I love my job as a career development educator, but one thing that I have struggled with is the job title that I use to describe what I do. Am I a counsellor, consultant, advisor, or educator? Is there another word or phrase I could use?
I’m not the only one thinking about this. Stanford University’s career development services recently renamed themselves and in doing so, redefined their purpose. I enjoy their new name a lot: BEAM, which stands for Bridging Education, Ambition and Meaningful Work.
I’m a believer in the idea of people creating their own job titles and often help my students adapt the job titles on their resume to better reflect what they actually did. So, I’ve been giving some thought to how I can communicate what I do and how I do it in a few key words.
Goodbye Career Counsellor
My concern comes partly from the fact that the field of university career development services is going through some significant change. Career development services are moving away from a focus on small workshops and one-on-one counselling, toward curricular and resource development as career development education is increasingly integrated into academic curricula and student engagement activities. Career counsellors are doing less counselling and more program, curriculum, and resource development.
In addition to these changes, I knew when I entered the occupation, I wanted to define myself in a certain way. I wasn’t attracted to the role of a counsellor, but rather wanted to remain an educator first and foremost. Counselling is a big part of my job, but what I really enjoy and do well is career development curriculum and resource development.
Goodbye Career Consultant
My official job title is currently Career Consultant, as it was in my previous position. Unfortunately, the integrity of this job title has been seriously diminished, as it is increasingly being used for sales representatives of private online vocational education providers. See this “career consultant” job description:
Are you energetic? enthusiastic? Team player? Wanting to earn $$..then look no further this is the role for you! Our client is a reputable organisaiton [sic] and they are seeking Outbound Sales Consultants to join their Hawthorn office. The purpose of this role is to assist prospective students to select an appropriate course from the clients portfolio and then for the student to commit to the enrolment.
These “career consultants” are paid a commission for each student they sign up to a course. It’s a massive rort in which these organisations and their “career consultants” engage in highly unethical and immoral practices. So, to avoid being tarred with the same brush as these guys, career consultant is off the table.
What else is there for career development professionals?
Careers advisor is quite a common alternative to consultant. I’m not a fan, as advisor ignores the educative aspect of the role and feels to me more like a transactional, rather than transformational, service.
I’ve seen in the field of instructional design some discussion about “what we call what we do” and really enjoyed this article by Connie Malamud arguing for the term “learning experience design”. It tempted me to create a cool, millennial job title such as Career Development Learning Experience Designer. I actually think that this title is the most accurate for my skills and career goals. However, I’m a little wary of straying into bullshit job title territory.
That leaves me with Career Development Educator. I like this because being an educator is fundamental to me. It has been English language and History in the past, it could be something else in the future. It also accommodates the transformative potential of education better than the transactional one-on-one feeling of advisor or consultant. There will always be a place for some one-on-one time, but I do think that developing quality educational programs and resources is how career services can achieve the greatest outcomes for their students.
I’d love to hear what other practitioners have to say about this. How would you define what you do and how you do it in a job title? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter.
