Mission
The Career Center in Grand Rapids provides low cost career services to members of the metro area community while providing a supervised clinical training site for graduate students in the counseling professions at Western Michigan University.
The Career Center opened in early 2007, established with support from a President's Innovation Grant from Western Michigan University. The Career Center is building on the success of, and provides complementary services to, the Center for Counseling & Psychological Services in Grand Rapids
Individual services are provided by professional staff and/or WMU graduate student counselors. Appointments will be necessary for all counseling sessions, and an affordable fee will be charged for most services of the Career Center. Among the services available will be the following, with approximate time requirements.
- Introductory Appointment (30 – 45 minutes): An overview of the services available in the center. A staff member will provide an objective assessment of the job seeker's needs and job skill strengths and weaknesses. The job seeker and the staff member together determine the additional services or resources available to meet the need.
- Career Counseling (1-8 hours): Emphasis is placed on assessment and evaluation of the needs of the individual. Assessment tools and resources are used, and a detailed interpretation of the test results are provided. (Additional fees for special assessments may apply.)
- Job Skills Transfer (1-3 hours): Identification of job seeker’s current skills and determining how these skills transfer into other employment choices, industries or fields.
- Résumé Development (1-3 hours): Review of job seeker’s current résumé or guidance on how to develop one, samples are provided. The focus is on how to best represent the job seeker’s accomplishments, employment and skills
- Interviewing Practice (1-6 hours): Job seekers can practice responding to and asking questions with the Practice Interview tool. Job seekers can assess their interviewing skills/behaviors through videotaped, confidential mock interviews.
- Job Search Strategies (1-4 hours): This service will help the job seeker set goals, establish priorities, develop networks, and learn methods of staying focused through job search process.
- Computerized Research (1-8 hours): One-on-one help is given for basic internet job searching. Job seekers are taught how to conduct their job search on-line; emphasis is placed on Internet skills, how to send email attachments and where to access job web sites.
**Number of hours are estimates. Clients will work with the career counselor to determine the career counseling plan that may include one or several aspects of the career services.
