Marketing Career Counseling Services: ERIC Digest

At a time when career counseling services are increasingly essential, they remain marginalized and under-used. This digest explores ways in which marketing counseling services in Canada can strengthen the professional identity of career counselors and increase public acceptance of this field. Many career counselors feel that marketing corrodes professional ethics. However, it may be that limiting marketing techniques is ultimately self-defeating, resulting in the profession turning inward and becoming increasingly non-competitive. With marketing, product development of services must be based on market research, and a thorough analysis of the needs and wants of the target audience is the first step. Marketing ultimately serves to ensure that a product is addressing an identified need, is clearly defined, is accessible, and helps consumers fully understand the services offered. Marketing can support career counseling services in three ways: (1) direct service delivery, in which the provider identifies who is to be served; (2) survival insurance, in which career counselors ensure their own survival; and (3) public awareness, which would increase the value of career counseling services. By marketing services to policy makers and funders, counselors could also demonstrate how career counseling benefits these policy makers. (RJM)