Counseling

‘Can you share examples of the most important questions and answers from counseling sessions? What is it that you discuss with people? What if I find it hard to formulate my question? What can I expect from a counseling session? And what will I talk to you for an entire hour?’ 

Were you wondering about these, but have not yet found a good occasion to ask? – Well, thanks to others who did, you will find out in this blog post:

‘If I change to industry or the public administration, does that mean I have to start all over again?’ is a question that is often asked in career counseling sessions one way or another. Clearly, after having invested so much time and energy in your education and your research project, the last thing you would want is starting from scratch. But do you really have to start all over again when you change career direction? And what is so bad about a fresh start?

‘What are you going to do with me now?’ or ‘I didn’t really know what to expect’ are sentences I often hear at the beginning of a counseling session. Not knowing what will happen can make us quite nervous, and for some this nervousness is even a reason to say ‘my questions are not that important, I don’t need counseling’. I congratulate each and every one of you who had the courage to come to a counseling session. It does take courage to expose yourself, not knowing what will come. For those who were secretly wondering what happens behind closed doors in my counseling room, let’s have a look at what career counseling is about.