Career Tips - The Sixth Stage (1990 to Present) - In Career Counseling History

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, career counseling was extending in various new directions: an upward extension (e.g., outplacement of senior executives); a downward extension (e.g., providing services for poor people, helping homeless people prepare resumes); an outward extension (e.g., providing services to schools and agencies through federal legislation); and an inward development (e.g., developing career specialties).
 
The upward extension included the populations of senior managers and executives who had rarely used these services before, but through economic imperatives (i.e., they were losing their jobs and had nowhere else to turn), now found themselves looking for work at times in their lives when they should have been planning for a financially successful retirement from the companies that they had spent their entire lives building.
 
The outward extension occurred because of renewed interest and support for career development through the policies of the federal government.

In fact, not since the 1960s have so many important laws affecting the career development of American citizens been passed by Congress and signed by a president. Beginning with President George Bush and continuing with President Bill Clinton, a resurgence in interest in the lifelong career development of the American populace has occurred. Such federal legislation as the School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994 and the One-Stop Career Centers Act of 1994 were important initiatives in this national.
 
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 was the single most important legislation protecting the right to employment of persons who are physically or mentally challenged. Finally, three other bulwarks of career development legislation were also reauthorized during this decade: the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act Amendments (formerly titled the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act), the Higher Education Act, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
 
This article is the beginning of a much larger international study of how economic processes and societal changes have affected the development of career counseling in the U.S. and around the world. If different nations have gone through similar stages in the development of career counseling, then the lessons learned in one nation can be used to assist another in its transition.

If, because of increased technological sophistication and increasing internationalization and integration of economic structures, our planet is becoming conceptually smaller with exposure to information as it happens in any part of the world, the stages outlined here may become worldwide phenomena, affecting all nations and their social structures simultaneously, including banking, stock markets, employment, education, and training. The stages that the U.S. has undergone will then become the map for the development of career counseling in other countries and allow career counseling professionals in other countries more time to prepare an even better response to the changes and the transitions based on their knowledge of the past.