Empowering career search and enrichment

Written by Catherine Rains 

Before I knew how to use Type for career counseling, I basically used the same counseling strategies with every client.  One student at a time (also known as the  road of hard knocks), I learned that clients responded more positively when I flexed my counseling strategies to meet the type preference of my client, rather than use a “if it works for me (and others like me), it will work for you” approach. For the next few months, we’re going to delve into specific ways to tailor the career counseling experience to the individual preferences of each client. 

Let’s start with students who prefer Extroversion.  What specific thing can you do to work most effectively with this preference?  Let me start with the first two suggestions: 

Provide lots of verbal interaction.  Seems obvious, but this preference is uncomfortable with silence, so I put more energy into keeping the conversation going.  I also count on this session to last longer, or to require a 2^nd or 3^rd session to finish the discussion that we started.

Allow client to think out loud.  This can appear like the student is scattered sometimes, but hearing their own words, and even having those same words repeated back to them by you, helps them sort out what they really mean.  They can start with one idea, and through thinking out loud, end up with a decision in a very different direction.

Can you list some examples of how to go about this? Stay tuned for more suggestions for Extroversion.