Being a career advisor is a demanding job, but in order to help clients, it’s essential to incorporate continuous improvement into our services. Here are seven tips on how to advance your clients and your service:

• Utilize the features of the Kuder Career Planning System® (KCPS) by having students and adults store documents, certifications, and successes in their portfolios.
• Find job shadowing, volunteering, and informational interviewing opportunities to expand the experiences of students working on making a college and career decisions.
• Create or update your own LinkedIn account and make it an example to share with clients. Check out our previous blog to help shape up your LinkedIn profile.
• Stay up to date on new occupations and industries to help students and adults prepare for occupations that are new and emerging in high-growth industries. Check out the Bright Outlook Occupations in O*NET. Use the KCPS to compare the occupations and help your clients connect them to their interests, skills, and work values.
• Network in your community to find out about special programs, grants, and opportunities for your clients. Connect with universities, colleges, and community organizations to track down special and unique opportunities in your area.
• Use the Scholarship Search tool in the KCPS to help clients pay for college in unique ways by providing pertinent information to find scholarships from the thousands of opportunities in the database.
• Don’t forget to discuss privacy and appropriate behavior on the Internet with your clients, especially during job searching. Help them change privacy, photo tag, and account settings across social media to protect their identity and their reputation. Here is a tip for helping them discover public information about themselves on the Internet: open a browser that is not typically used, search the full name and partial name on google.com, and click on Web, Images, Videos, etc.

Finally, the best continuous improvement plan should include ongoing professional development to ensure that you’re sharpening your skills.