Paper Example: Career Development Application Paper

It is inquisitive how someone would travel from abroad after working for a corporation as a secretary for over five years yet come to start a business in their local country. Such a transition could seem impossible, especially with the changing metrics in factors such as the economy and politics. To ensure a smooth transition into becoming a business professional, an analysis of the client, a working alliance, the necessary strategies, and existing constraints will be considered in the following paper.

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A Description of the Client

The client is aged 35 years, lying between the age group of 35 and 50. Her life stage can be described as that of a newly immigrated widowed woman with one daughter in high school. She is a graduate at a local university with a diploma in office administration. She had previously worked as a receptionist and an administrative assistant locally at different companies before getting an offshore job where she worked as a secretary for more than five years.

The client is an enthusiastic individual with great adaptability skills and a strong extraversion personality. She is focused on starting a business after saving for the five years she was working abroad. She is determined to explore what I could offer to encourage her future career. She is also keen on the details that would encourage her career development and locating the resources and the sources of career information. She always yearned to shift from getting employed to owning an enterprise with a chain of businesses. Even so, she does not know where to start from or even how to start. From a general perception, she stutters yet proves to show a high level of confidence during the discussion. My primary focus is to assist her in making informed decisions concerning her career development and trajectory and offer the necessary advice as well as tools she could use to lead her into being a professional business person.

Working Alliance

The client is passionate about coming for counseling as she always wanted to be self-employed. Besides her stuttering, she aims to realize her dreams of becoming a business professional. There is a need to have a genuine, trusting, respectful, and empathic alliance between the client and me (Vanderhallen, Vervaeke, & Holmberg, 2011). It is only through the alliance that I can realize their desires, capabilities, and also relate them with a good profile. The primary barrier to a working alliance is the lack of communication skills (Macneil, Hasty, Evans, Redlich, & Berk, 2009). It could take a long time to build a rapport with the client because of their stuttering. Additionally, the client has no previous experience with a counseling session and was fearful of the viability of the information that they could get during the counseling session. Besides the barriers, her enthusiastic ability would make the counseling session a smooth process.

Strategies to Develop a Working Alliance

A successful working alliance demands a well-defined strategy. The main consideration would be building an agreement with them on the goals to be focused upon, the tasks to be accomplished in the process of goal realization, and developing mutual respect and trust between the client and me (Orsi, Lafortune, & Brochu, 2010). To build a rapport with the client, I would first acknowledge their presence upon arrival to encourage a mutual relationship, attend to them in a smooth process, and connecting with them to build upon goals. I would also encourage the client to tell their story and experience to build a good connection with them. In doing so, I would have developed a viable working alliance with the client as well as a good counselor-client relationship. I would later assess the working alliance by checking on their communication on personal history, active listening, and enthusiastic involvement in communication.

Strategies to Define the Client's Problem

It is important to critically analyze and also clearly articulate a client's problem to meet the positive outcomes of innovative solutions. The strategy to define the client's problem would first involve gathering of information for their situation. The facts to be collected would involve the resources involved, the environment they associate themselves with, their opinions, as well as suggestions and assumptions. The necessary information would encourage later problem-solving as well as decision-making (Kim, Ferrin, & Rao, 2008). I would later confirm and reconfirm their goals. I would check on whether the client is interested and ready to get into the business sector. I would also assess whether they would want to reach a career-life balance and maintain logical thinking throughout the process. With well-defined goals, the process would yield implacable plans. Finally, I would identify the potential challenges and barriers in the process. In this process, I could guide the client to realize and note any existing challenges and barriers as they only remain well-known to them. It could be achieved by raising the self-awareness of her challenges, such as communicating and identifying with a multicultural society.

Constraints

• A shift into a new career environment because of the transition from employment to becoming self-employed. Additionally, her working experience would become null, as she would be required to start her career again. They needed to be trained on the new career path.
• The clustering of enterprises around her locality is a challenge for new business start-ups, yet she is not likely to face her fears boldly.
• Poor communication skills are a barrier, especially being a new member of the business field. It is essential for her to overcome her language skills barrier.

References

Kim, D. J., Ferrin, D. L., & Rao, H. R. (2008). A trust-based consumer decision-making model in electronic commerce: The role of trust, perceived risk, and their antecedents. Decision Support Systems, 44(2), 544-564. doi:10.1016/j.dss.2007.07.001

Macneil, C. A., Hasty, M. K., Evans, M., Redlich, C., & Berk, M. (2009). The therapeutic alliance: is it necessary or sufficient to engender positive outcomes? Acta Neuropsychiatrica, 21(02), 95-98. doi:10.1111/j.1601-5215.2009.00372.x

Orsi, M. M., Lafortune, D., & Brochu, S. (2010). Care and Control: Working Alliance Among Adolescents in Authoritarian Settings. Residential Treatment For Children & Youth, 27(4), 277-303. doi:10.1080/0886571x.2010.520637

Vanderhallen, M., Vervaeke, G., & Holmberg, U. (2011). Witness and Suspect Perceptions of Working Alliance and Interviewing Style. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 8(2), 110-130. doi:10.1002/jip.138