Example Interview #1

Client is a first semester junior in college exploring career choices. Client is taking part in a career
counseling session and has informed the interviewer that s/he is considering psychology as a major and
counseling as a career.

Interviewer is reviewing a form that outlines key aspects of career choice.

Interviewer: (overly casual, almost uninterested) The next thing on my questionnaire is your job
history. Tell me a little bit about it, will ya?

Client: (hesitant, unsure) Well, I guess the job that, uh…

Interviewer: Hold it! That’s the phone. (Long pause while the interviewer talks to a colleague). Uh,
okay, okay where were we?

Client: The job that really comes to mind is my work as a camp counselor during my senior year
of high school. I really liked counseling kids and …

Interviewer: (interrupts) Oh yeah. I did a camp counselor job myself. It was Camp Itasca in
Minnesota. I wasn’t crazy about it, though. But I did manage to have fun. What else
have you been doing?

Client: Ah…well, I …ah…wanted to tell you more about this counseling job, I …

Interviewer: (interrupts) I got that down on the form already, so tell me about something else. A lot
of counseling types have done peer counseling in school. Have you?

Client: (puzzled, confused) Ah…no, I didn’t.

Interviewer: Many effective counselors were peer helpers in school…

Client: (interrupts) No, I lived in a small town. I never learned about peer counseling until I got
to college.

Interviewer: Too bad, it might have helped.

Client: I only had 75 kids in my graduating class, but I know that counseling is what…

Interviewer: (interrupts) Humm, that sounds like something I ought to write down. You came from a
small school.

Client: One person I always admired was my school counselor. He really got along with the
kids.

Interviewer: My school counselor wasn’t so great. I think it was just a job for him.
Adapted from: Ivey, Allen E. and Ivey, Mary Bradford. (2003) Intentional Interviewing and Counseling: Facilitating Client
Development in a Multicultural Society, 5th Edition. Brooks/ Cole – Thomson Learning; Pacific Grove, CA.
 Example Interview #2
Interviewer: Client’s name, so far, I’ve heard that you are interested in counseling as a career. You’ve
liked your psychology course and you find friends come to talk to you about their
problems. In this next phase of the session, I would like to review a form with you that
might help us plan together. The next thing on this form is something about your job
history. Could you tell me a little bit about the jobs you’ve had in the past? Would that
be ok?

Client: Sure, the job that comes to mind is one that I had in my senior year in high school and
during my first two years of college as a camp counselor at the YMCA.

Interviewer: Sounds like you really liked it. Tell me more.

Client: Well, I was…as a kid people always asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had
no idea, but when I worked at this camp, I realized that I truly liked working with kids
and was good at it.

Interviewer: Uh-huh.

Client: I like to work with people, and perhaps that is why I am thinking of majoring in
psychology.

Interviewer: I see. So, you really liked helping kids in the camp. It even makes you think that this is
the career direction that you might like to head in. Can you give me a specific example
of what happened at the camp that you particularly liked?

Client: Well, I seemed to be able to get kids in the group to work together – there were kids
from lots of different racial groups with differing amounts of money in their background.
Yet I seemed to be able to organize them in a way that built on the strengths of
everybody. And we resolved conflicts. I think I helped them feel pretty good about
themselves.

Interviewer: Sounds like you really feel good about your work there.

Client: Oh, I was delighted. I felt my cabin was the most cohesive group in the camp
sometimes. I feel real good because I helped them and we had lots of fun at the same
time. I learned how to play the ukulele and we had some great singing sessions. I
thought, you know, that this could be a profession for me and that would be great…if I
could do something like this year-round.

Interviewer: So, continuing helping others the year round may be important. What are some things
along that line you’ve thought of that you might want to do?

Client: Well, I thought I might want to become a counselor so that I could help people with real
personal problems. Kids come to me a lot to talk about their issues with their families

Adapted from: Ivey, Allen E. and Ivey, Mary Bradford. (2003) Intentional Interviewing and Counseling: Facilitating Client
Development in a Multicultural Society, 5th Edition. Brooks/ Cole – Thomson Learning; Pacific Grove, CA.
 and friends. I might even want to be a camp director. I know I want to work with people,
but I am not exactly sure how.

Interviewer: So, client’s name, it seems clear that working with people is something you like and one
of your real strengths. People skills are important in many jobs. Could we shift gears
here for a moment? I know something now about what you like, but could you tell me
perhaps about a job that you didn’t like so well?

Client: During the other months of the year, I had a paper route where lived. It was so boring,
and I hated it when the weather was bad. And the papers were sometimes so heavy.
Sometimes they were so thick, I couldn’t throw them to the upper floors. The pay
wasn’t all that good, but that was the only job I could find.

Interviewer: Uh-huh. It was hard, but the only job you could find. Sounds like boring is not something
you want in a job.

Client: Right, I thought of quitting many times, but I hate to be thought of as a quitter. I was
determined not to quit.

Interviewer: Uh-huh.

Client: I had a couple of friends who had the same job. They’d deliver from, you know, August
to October, and then as soon as it got cold, they’d quit and just live off the allowance
their parents gave them. I decided I was going to tough it our through the winter, and
the guy who was the boss down there, he told me in May when I finally quit to go to
camp, he said, “You’re a good kid, you know, you stuck through the winter.” That meant
a lot to me.

Interviewer: So, to wind up here at this particular point – we’ve talked about a job you liked and one
you didn’t. Can you put anything together in the two jobs that might be useful for you to
note and for us to remember? Your sticking through the winter, that may even tie in
with some of the stuff we talked about earlier in camp.

Client: Well, I didn’t like the paper route, but it sure felt good when I discovered that I wasn’t a
quitter and the boss said those good things. And, I felt good about myself when I saw
the kids doing so well as I worked with them. I guess I have some natural talents. I seem
to be able to work with people and maybe I’ll be able to hang with them when the going
gets tough.

Interviewer: So, client’s name, putting it all together, it sounds as if you have some strengths that will
be useful in working with people and you have that important quality of persistence –
you can hang when it gets rough. These are some real positives that you can draw on as
we start to toward career choice.

Client: (pause) That’s right. I never thought of it that way before. Even my work on the paper
route might be valuable in making my mind up for sure. I certainly know that boring and
tedious are not for me.

Adapted from: Ivey, Allen E. and Ivey, Mary Bradford. (2003) Intentional Interviewing and Counseling: Facilitating Client
Development in a Multicultural Society, 5th Edition. Brooks/ Cole – Thomson Learning; Pacific Grove, CA.