Career Counseling
UMKC Career Services offers trained career counselors who hold the belief that a job is more than just a paycheck, and that through a career, there is opportunity for self expression and personality development. Even more, a career is an opportunity to clarify and expand one’s professional or career identity. Our mission is to help our clients reach their personal and professional goals through their careers.
Because so much of a person’s life and identity can be tied up in a career, it can be difficult for people to unravel the conflicting issues in their lives that interact or influence work.
Some of the issues we assist clients with are:
- Difficulty finding or keeping a job
- Unraveling family of origin expectations that may differ from the clients’ view of their professional self
- Helping to shape a person’s professional/career identity through clarifying majors
- Interpersonal difficulties on the job or during the job search
- Assisting in clarifying career and life goals and then defining steps to accomplish those goals
- Difficulty transitioning to the next level of one’s academic/professional career
It is the goal of the UMKC career counselor to teach holistic skills to our clients while, at the same time, empowering them to initiate change in a positive direction in their professional lives. Our career counselors are trained in a wide array of interest, skills, and values tests as well as personality assessments designed to explore the client’s environment and how the client operates within it. We help clients define their own goals and provide the skills necessary to independently take action toward achieving those goals.