CAREER EXPLORATION PAPER 1
Career Exploration Paper
Cara Soto
School of Behavioral Sciences in Mental Health Counseling, Liberty University
CAREER EXPLORATION PAPER 2
Career Field and Occupation of Choice
Introduction
The career that I choose to explore is the Mental Health Counseling field. Unless
otherwise cited, the career information presented in this paper was obtained from O*NET On-
Line (National Center for O*NET Development, 2010). Helping others and leadership are at the
top of my values and they do match with the field of mental health counseling. Mental health
counseling provides a place to use my helping skills by listening, providing resources, and
speaking with others. A couple of requirements that are in mental health counseling are problem
solving, persuasion, critical thinking, social perceptiveness (Career One Stop, 2021), these all
sound challenging and interesting to me.
My career goals are to become a licensed mental health counselor who has a job with a
non-profit and also a private practice. After taking the O*Net assessment, I was strong in the
social and enterprise. I think that this works well with the career that I chose to explore. The
occupational characteristic of social works well because it involves helping people and the
occupational characteristic of enterprising because it pushes me to take a risk to venture out and
start my own business in mental health counseling.
The advantages of using O*net are that it gives great direction to exploring the thousands
of jobs that are out there. It provides the opportunity to see a list of occupations that I might
never see or even know existed. Thus, it offers such a great opportunity to those who wish to
explore a little more about careers. One disadvantage that could happen is that it could hinder a
person from exploring certain careers that don't fall into the assigned categories, because I feel
the assessment could change a little bit based on how the person is feeling that day, or the
pragmatic side coming out when answering questions. Therefore, I feel that it would be more
helpful to have a career counselor work with the individual and really see if they like working
CAREER EXPLORATION PAPER 3
with book and structure or maybe that is ingrained in them from childhood that they feel them
being artistic is not an option because it might not provide a stable income.
The career that I chose to explore Mental Health counseling O*NET SOC code is 21-
1014.00. My top Holland codes are Social, Enterprising, and Investigative.
Nature of the Work
The presenting duties of a mental health counselor include counseling clients and helping
them put together a treatment plan, writing reports and evaluations, conducting assessments,
holding group sessions that teach client or community life skills. Collaborate with other
professionals and community services to help client’s complete treatment plans.
Some of the skills that are required for this job are being a good active listener, using
critical thinking skills, looking for ways to help people, noticing a problem and figuring out ways
to solve it is great critical thinking. Also important to this career is active learning, always
learning new skills to help others and myself grow. One skill that I need to work on is judgment
and decision making. I believe that with practice I will be able to better understand the pros and
cons of a situation and then make the best choice.
I see that the activities of a typical workday will most likely include coming to work and
reviewing the client’s treatment plan, meet with the client and assess where they are in their plan.
Listen to them as to what the next step is and where they would like to go. After meeting with
client, I will write reports and evaluations based on our session. Next, I will review the lesson for
the group that I'm having the evening that consists of community member that need
psychoeducational classes along with resources on mental health. I will go over a brief training
with the staff at the office making sure they understand their role for tonight as clients fill out
forms and staff process them based on needs and answer question from the group. Afterward, the
CAREER EXPLORATION PAPER 4
afternoon will consist of reviewing videos of interns that are under my supervision and
counseling two more clients.
Working Conditions
Mental health counselors can work in many different places. Mental hospitals, prisons,
private practice, community health centers, schools, among other places of employment. Most
work eight hours a day. Depending on the job placement will determine the hours of day worked
and what days of the week. 84% of mental health counselors stated that they had face to face
discussions with people every day. 91% said they had constant contact with people, however,
84% said that they had lots of freedom as far as structuring work was concerned. There are many
types of population that a mental health counselor can work with. From low socioeconomic to
high socioeconomic. They can work with young children or older people, male, or female.
The phycological aspects of work for a mental health counselor include but are not
limited to calmly and effectively dealing with high stress on the job, may have to deal with
multiple crisis a day, there are deadlines that must be met for clients, boards, staff, and meetings.
Mental health counseling can be emotionally taxing and draining to the counselor, heavy
workloads and few resources add to the stress (Career One Stop, 2021). Self-care plan must be
implemented for this line of work.
Preparations and Qualifications
Licensed Mental Health Counselors (LMHC) must have a master’s degree in Mental
health Counseling, they must also complete two years of supervision. All states require a license
to practice. They must be critical thinkers, service oriented, along with being an active listener.
Their work experience comes from many hours of supervision under a licensed counselor. In
Florida there is a required 1,500 hours post grad counseling with 100 hours supervised. In some
CAREER EXPLORATION PAPER 5
other states they require as many as 4,500 hours with 150 hours of supervision. LMHC's must
have a strong foundation in reading and writing, in sociology and psychology. Some of the
personal traits that a mental health counselor needs to have or develop are staying clam in crisis,
having a listening ear, removing own biases, confidentiality.
Opportunities and Future Outlook
Workforce size for a mental health counselor has reached 319,400 in 2019. According to
O*net this sector of jobs is growing at a very fast rate, in 10 years there is a 25% increase in job
demand. This research was done prior to COVID-19, that makes me think that there will even be
a greater demand based on the current situation. Substance Abuse, Behavioral Disorder, and
Mental Health Counselors have been lumped into one category. California has the highest
employment rate for this sector. Vermont is in the highest need for mental health counselors. The
largest concentration of working Substance Abuse, Behavioral Disorder, and Mental Health
Counselors is the central United States and the Eastern sector of the US.
Economic and Non-Economic Benefits
If you want to move to the metropolitan places that pay the most move to Enid,
Oklahoma or Reno, Nevada the average per hour wage is $47 and $41 respectively
(Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2021). In my area where I live which is the Miami-Fort
Lauderdale area the low wages are $20,640 per year, compared to the US low wage is $29,120
per year. I have learned from experience that some mental health counselors choose to be in
private practice which means that they are self-employed and must find their own source of
health insurance and they do not get paid vacation or sick days. Some jobs in schools or hospitals
may offer insurance (possibly for a monthly fee) and paid vacation with sick days. Benefits
depend on where you work.
CAREER EXPLORATION PAPER 6
Mental health counseling can be a rewarding career. It is a helping profession that can be
gratifying when a client makes progress. In most places a mental health counselor can set their
own schedule and as O*net (2021) stated that a counselor’s schedule can be flexible which may
lead to greater satisfaction with life. However, Fleury et. al (2017) stated that mental health
counseling is one of the most stigmatized professions, a big component of job satisfaction
depends on the counselor’s team support and relationship with team members.
Disadvantages and/or Special Situations
As a mental health counselor work hours could be irregular depending on where you
work. It might also be seasonal, for example being here in Alaska the need is greater during the
winter months then the summer because of the weather and daylight hours. Many counselors
work overtime. Weekends and/or evenings may have to be worked due to the clients you see or
the venue where you work such as a hospital or prison. The hazards that could happen might
happen in a mental health ward or prison. I have a friend who works in a mental health hospital,
and she has been attacked multiple times by the patients who have been admitted. One time a
patient punched her in the face, and broke her nose.
Conclusion
I think the occupational characteristics and requirements that appeal to me are the active
listening, critical thinking and talking with others one-on-one or teaching a group. I think the one
that surprised me is using scientific rules and methods to solve problems. I'm not sure how to do
this or if I'm already doing it. I have learned about myself that I need to do a lot more self-
development. Most all the abilities that one needs to be a great counselor are skills and this can
be learned and improved with time, so, this definitely gives me hope.
CAREER EXPLORATION PAPER 7
I would say that most of the occupational characteristics and requirements not only fit
with my values and goals I also become excited about the profession just by reading all the
requirements and criteria for the profession. I believe that these occupational characteristics and
requirements fit very well with my career goals.
I see the advantages of using O*net in my future counseling career as a helpful tool to be
able to guide a young person, maybe someone who is re-entering the workforce or someone who
is dissatisfied with their job to take the assessment and find the most suitable job match. One
disadvantage I see in using the O*net is that it would take time for the client to take the
assessment and find their job this would take a lot of self-motivation and computer knowledge.
Also, as I was trying to find the phycological benefits of the job, personal satisfaction, and
associated lifestyle I had to deduce from what information was given to me. The wording was
vague as it said that counseling was rewarding.
In summary, I think that using the Career Exploration Process is such a helpful tool to
have when counseling someone that needs career guidance. As pointed out in the first chapter of
our textbook, we live in uncertain times (Niles & Harris-Bowlsbey, 2017), teens and adults are
looking for careers or career changes. I believe that the pandemic is going to create a new wave
of job searching and that this class with all the tools will prove to be invaluable to the
advancement of clients finding first their values and then building on that with O*net and other
resources. Because of the complexity of career counseling and how one must factor in the client's
stress, family dynamics and unique life experiences, Niles and Harris-Bowlsbey (2017) point
out, that a good career counselor is first and foremost a good counselor.
CAREER EXPLORATION PAPER 8
References
Career One Stop, U.S. Department of Labor. (2021). Mental health counseling. Retrieved from
https://www.careeronestop.org/sitesearch.aspx?keyword=mental%20health%20counselor
Fleury, M. J., Grenier, G., & Bamvita, J. M. (2017). Job satisfaction among mental healthcare
professionals: The respective contributions of professional characteristics, team
attributes, team processes, and team emergent states. SAGE open medicine, 5,
2050312117745222. https://doi.org/10.1177/2050312117745222
Niles, S. G., & Harris-Bowlsbey, J. (2017). Career development interventions (Fifth ed.).
Pearson.
National Center for O*NET Development. (2010). Summary Report: Mental Health Counselors.
(O*Net Report No. 21-1014.00). Retrieved from O*Net Online website:
http://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/21-1014.00
Occupational Outlook Handbook, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2021). Mental health
counseling. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/ooh/community-and-social-
service/substance-abuse-behavioral-disorder-and-mental-health-counselors.htm
