A career counsellor works on direction, change and difficulty at work, covering situations from choosing a path for the first time to changing field entirely, returning to work after a break, coping with redundancy, or simply reaching a point where work has stopped making sense in the way it once did.
More than a practical exercise
What sets career counselling apart from career coaching is that it also addresses what sits underneath the practical question of what to do next: confidence that has taken a knock, questions of identity tied up in a particular career, family expectation pulling in a different direction, and a fear of change that can keep someone stuck in a role long after it has stopped working for them.
Where clinical support is needed instead
Career counselling is not treatment for a mental health condition, and a counsellor working ethically in this field will say so where work-related stress has developed into something more, a depressive episode or an anxiety disorder that genuinely needs clinical treatment rather than career-focused conversation. Where that boundary is respected, career counselling can be a genuinely useful space for working through a decision that feels stuck.