Evaluation of Career Counsellors' Competences in Career Guidance

The importance of career guidance and the role of career counsellor is described and highlighted in this article. The aim of the study is to evaluate the importance of career counsellor competencies in the field of career guidance in Latvia, to develop criteria for evaluating career counsellor competence in order to achieve this goal. The self-evaluation of career counsellors regarding their competences was used. In the study 337 respondents were took part from all Latvia regions, they were graduates of the last ten years of the Career Counsellors Master's Program and other in-service career counsellors and school career counsellors working in schools, employment agencies and private consulting companies. The data were analysed statistically by using SPSS computer program: 1) rank transformation, 2) crosstab method, 3) chi-squared test. The significance of the results and the most important conclusion: the best developed professional competencies of career counsellors and school career counsellors on criteria Career information competences are knowledge of updated information on employment trends, labour market, and social issues. The best developed sub-competences on criteria Career education competences are to demonstrate the knowledge of lifelong career development process and to use career planning and decision making in training. The three most developed sub-competencies on criteria Career counselling competences are ability to use dialogue in career guidance, exploration competency and use of counselling methods. The three most developed sub-competencies on criteria Career service managing competence are skills to cooperate effectively in a team ofprofessionals, knowledge of (office) politics, networking ability. The three most developed sub-competencies on criteria Generic competence are observing ethical standards, communication and listening and empathy, insight.