The Complete Guide to Becoming An Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselor and Advisor

Chapter 1: What Does a Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselor and Advisor Actually Do?

Let's clear something up right away: the job title "educational, guidance, and career counselor and advisor" is a bureaucratic mouthful that covers a lot of different actual work. You will not spend your days sitting in a comfy office, nodding thoughtfully while students have breakthroughs. That happens occasionally. But the rest of the time, you're managing caseloads, writing reports, entering data into outdated software, and talking to parents who are frustrated, teachers who are overworked, and students who would rather be anywhere else.

To understand this occupation, you have to understand where you'll work. The Bureau of Labor Statistics groups this career under "Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors," and the overwhelming majority of these jobs are in elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, and vocational rehabilitation services. The school settings alone account for roughly 70% of the jobs in this field. If you picture yourself doing this work, you're most likely picturing a school building, a college campus, or a workforce development office.

The Core Responsibilities

At its most basic level, a counselor or advisor in this field helps people make decisions about education and careers. But that phrase "helps people" hides a mountain of specific, repetitive tasks. Here's what that actually looks like on a weekly basis.

You will conduct one-on-one sessions with students or clients. In a high school setting, that might mean meeting with a sophomore who wants to drop