The Effect of Career Counselor Behavior on Reemployment

When looking at career interventions, one-on-one career counseling is one of the most effective and firmly established types of intervention. Furthermore, career counseling process quality has been validated as a predictor of job seekers' reemployment. To elucidate the underlying components of a high-quality counseling process, the effects of counselor behavior in mandatory counseling sessions at three Swiss job centers are investigated. Based on a transfer of psychotherapeutic effectiveness research into the domain of career counseling, three behavior categories are proposed as components of a high-quality counseling process: providing structured guidance during the counseling process, providing personalized support, and activating job seekers' resources. Scientific observers rated these counselor behavior categories in 32 counseling sessions. The ratings of "providing structured guidance" predicted job seekers' reemployment speed at a correlation of 0.58. The measured effect equals yearly savings of 831 million Swiss Francs CHF (US$839) in Swiss unemployment benefits. The correlations with the other two behavior category ratings were in the same direction but nonsignificant.