Enhancing Career Development through Career Day Programs (1996)

Career day programs are common components of career guidance efforts at virtually every level of compulsory education. Some modified forms of such programs are even included at the college and university level. Traditionally, career day programs have focused on providing job description and training information to students through presentations by role models from the local community. Counselors have selected presenters on the basis of career interests of students and have attempted to represent the variety of jobs available in their communities. As student populations have become more ethnically diverse and as job opportunities for men and women have broadened in our society, many counselors have responded to these changes by selecting role models to reflect the ethnic diversity of the school and nontraditional employment opportunities. The purpose of this article is to propose that career day programs can be used to better meet the career exploration and the school-to-work needs of today's students by broadening the content of such programs. Through a personalized look at multiple aspects of career exploration and the job search process, students are exposed to reports from employee role models about their experiences. The Need for Change The world of work each of today's students will enter requires a higher level of education for entry than was true for previous generations. It is estimated that over 80% of new jobs will require some post set education (Sukiennik, Raufman, Bendat, 1992). The workplace itself is dynamic and influenced by changes in technology, job obsolescence, and an international female workers and those from different cultural backgrounds. Stress, job insecurity, and job change are also commonplace. Although assistance with career concerns is considered appropriate by teachers (Gibson, 1990), students (Burknett, 1993) and school counselors (Miller, 1988), it has been argued that college bound students receive most of the career assistance (Lee & Ekstrom, 1987; Peer, 1985). Lee and Ekstrom (1987) point out that even though all high school students face career decisions, students in the general curriculum track with the least focus for after school plans and students who are disadvantaged because of their social class and/or with minority status had the least contact with counselors. This imbalance is further exacerbated since the families of these students are likely to have lower levels of educational achievement, less access to work experiences, less general exposure, and are thus less likely to have the information to assist their children. The proposed Career day format provides access and the proposed changes broaden students' knowledge bases to include more of the affective aspects of the career development process. The literature also suggests that in addition to access concerns, the career development needs of students are different. Career development concerns associated with the gifted are: multipotentiality, pressure from the expectations of others, a lack of adult role models, being a gifted and talented female (Clark, 1988; Herr & Watanabe, cited in Colangelo & Zaffrann, 1979). Regarding multipotentiality, for example, gifted students experience difficulty with career decisions because career options are not eliminated based on achievement, since there are no low achievement areas. Sproles (1988) reports that students who seek training in vocational programs not traditionally associated with their gender face this bias as a barrier. Bloch (1991) reports that career information is a helpful component of programs designed to meet the needs of at-risk students. Although the influences on every individual's career decision are unique to them, theoretically, the process is the same and gathering meaningful information is an important step. Based on the developmental approaches to career choice like that of Super (Zunker, 1994), the career exploration stage of career development begins for most people with the middle school years and lasts for several years until the individual begins to narrow his/her choices leading to a career decision and implementation. …