Chapter Review

2.1 Building Empathic Relationships

• The initiation process starts with establishing an empathic, trusting, and safe relationship. A place where the client can honestly share about their career.

2.2 Determining the Perceived Present

• A strong working relationship lets clients share the issues they perceive as impacting their careers, which allows the CDP to interpret the types of change they are experiencing.

2.3 Eliciting History, Strengths and Needs

• Once the present challenges are shared, it is time to engage in a reflective process to help the client and the CDP learn about the significant events from their early school years leading up to the present. Eliciting a person’s career history provides rich insights into patterns and themes. This process allows the CDP to gain insights into client strengths. These, in turn, become empowering moments for clients as they develop an awareness of their capabilities and the power of the career processes that they are engaged in with the CDP.

2.4 Clarifying Aspirations, Goals and Challenges

• With the relationship established and a survey of their career history and strengths completed, the CDP can learn about their client’s hopes, aspirations, and challenges.

2.5 Proposing a Plan of Action

• It is helpful to understand that the CDP’s role is process-oriented. The CDP’s work is intended to help others become more effective in directing their career. This leads to developing an action plan, a series of steps designed to resolve the career challenges.

2.6 Engaging Client Agreement

• Engaging client agreement is vital to ensure the client has the motivation to take the next steps toward implementing the action plan.