by Vicki Noll

Created on: May 10, 2009

The days of thirty years in a company are long gone. On average, Americans change jobs 7 times in their lifetime-change jobs within a field, change fields and change their lives. Portfolio careers is a term used to describe the transient way Americans have begun to manage their careers. We've become a nation of sub-contractors, moving from one company to another in a project-based system.

This trend has ensured the success of career counselors, but what does a career counselor actually do? Can they tell you what you should or shouldn't be doing with your life? Can they give you a test and identify your dream job? Can they, in six sessions or less, place you on the right path for lifelong satisfaction and fulfillment?

The fast answer is probably not, but then, that isn't always true. Believe it or not, it depends on the client. That's right; the client has to accept some responsibility for uncovering the answers to these questions for themselves.

Most career counselors believe that we hold all the information necessary to develop a perfect job description for ourselves. We know what we value, what we love, what activities make time fly. Tests and inventories can help us sift through the years of audio we've got stored in our brains: all the voices of well-meaning people in our lives who told us what we should do.

These people love us and meant no harm. Our mothers never wanted us to be miserable, they just wanted us to be productive citizens able to pay our own rent, do our own laundry and some day move out of our bedrooms so they could become sewing rooms, dens and guest rooms. Our fathers didn't force us into engineering school because he wanted us to dread Monday mornings; he wanted us to make enough money to buy the American dream, and pay for our own kids' orthodontia and piano lessons.

A skilled career counselor helps us still those other voices that may have urged us into jobs for which we are ill-suited. He or she provides the resources that enable us to explore our interests, examine our passions and reflect on our strengths, talents and limitations. If you hear your career counselor say the words, "you should be a..." or "you need to quit that job of yours and go into...", you're in the wrong office. Leave your mom's kitchen and hire a skilled career counselor who listens to you, knows how to ask deep probing questions that encourage self-reflection, and gives

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