Chapter 6: Career Counseling Centers at The College Level

The role of the career center has evolved over the years from being a placement center that places students into full-time jobs to a fully comprehensible college and career planning center catering to freshmen through alumni in all aspects of career development. From the early 1900s to the late 1970s, most offices fell under the name of career planning and placement (Herr, Rayman, & Garis, 1993). When it came to on-campus interviewing, students would be hand-selected to interview for positions, usually by one of their professors. “This was primarily a male activity, an old boys’ network, by which a faculty member would speak on behalf of a student or persons of importance who might employ him as a favor to, or out of respect for, the professor” (Herr et al., 1993, p. 1).