09/01/2026

Beyond the Screen: Equipping Future Career Counselors with Practical Tech Competencies

By Lisa Cardello and Regina Gavin Williams

As career counseling becomes more technology-driven, counselor educators must equip students with practical and ethical digital tools that can be utilized in future practice. This article presents four technology-based teaching strategies and assignments that counselor educators can utilize: digital presence and brand auditing, modern mock interviewing, interactive occupational exploration, and a career tech audit. By integrating technology-based assignments, counselor educators can prepare students to use digital tools effectively, responsibly and in alignment with the National Career Development Association’s Code of Ethics (NCDA, 2024). This in turn can help prepare future career counselors to confidently and ethically employ technology to support clients in an increasingly digital world.

Digital Presence & Brand Auditing
Mastering digital presence, defined as an individual’s online visibility via search engines (Plachy, 2023), and personal brand audits are essential technological competencies for career counselors to grasp. A strong digital presence is built by creating a professional website, sharing quality content, engaging on social media such as LinkedIn and Facebook, distributing email newsletters, and using paid advertising (Hartford Funds, n.d.). A brand audit evaluates how effectively one’s brand communicates personal values to a target audience (Stobierski, 2025). For example, counselors can use tools like CareerExplorer’s career test to help clients audit and align their professional brand with their core values and skills so that potential employers understand who they are interviewing.

Counselor educators can have students examine their digital presence by using generative AI tools like Microsoft Copilot to search their own online narratives. Following the ILPL Digital Presence Framework (Patel & Joiner-Hill, 2025), students craft a prompt stating their professional identity, directing the AI to search for them, summarize findings, and extract three descriptive keywords. For example, “I am a counselor educator, therapist, and higher education administrator with 15 years of experience. Look for Regina Gavin Williams to determine her current online story. Write a short summary and identify three descriptive words to describe Regina Gavin Williams.” Students can then share with course discussion groups what their online presence is and their three descriptive words.

Modern Mock Interviewing
Counselor educators can utilize a modern approach to mock interviewing by integrating AI simulation platforms, such as SpectraSeek or Big Interview, to move future career counselors beyond basic practice and toward clinical data interpretation. As a course activity, counselor educators can introduce an “AI Feedback Loop” where they ask students to complete a simulated interview analyzed by AI for behavioral metrics such as eye contact, filler word frequency, and speech sentiment. Students will then write a mock counselor reflection note where they can articulate how they would discuss these results with a client who might feel vulnerable about such feedback. This activity can help counselor educators bridge technical career competencies with therapeutic counseling skills, therefore helping to prepare their students to ethically and effectively use digital tools in career counseling practice.

Interactive Occupational Exploration
Traditional career exploration often relies on static databases, which risk turning an active journey of discovery into passive reading. Counselor educators can bridge the gap between information and application by pairing O*NET Online with Forage, a platform offering free, employer-backed virtual work simulations (Forage, n.d.). In an assignment titled "The Virtual Day-in-the-Life," students begin by identifying a target occupation using O*NET’s labor market data and skill requirements. After researching the foundational details, students must locate and complete a corresponding “virtual job simulation” on Forage. These job simulations offer “a window into the company and a preview of their day-to-day” work tasks (Forage, n.d., para. 1), as well as support job-seekers in building work-ready skills.

This pairing shifts the perspective of occupational information from a static data set to an experiential process. Future counselors learn to guide clients through "trying on" various career paths in a virtual and risk-free environment. This approach allows for low-stakes assessment of person-environment fit. It also empowers students to help future clients build confidence or pivot interests before they invest in costly degrees or certifications.

Ethics and Professionalism: Career Tech Audit
With generative AI and third-party platforms now commonplace, counselor educators must shift from merely referencing ethics to teaching a model of critical evaluation of technological tools. The NCDA Code of Ethics (specifically Section F) provides a robust framework for ethical use of technology and social media (NCDA, 2024). Students need structured practice applying these standards to client situations they may face in practice. Counselor educators can facilitate this by implementing a "Career Tech Audit" assignment.

In this group assignment, students evaluate a specific career development tool, such as an AI resume builder, a digital portfolio platform, or a mock interview app. Groups audit their chosen platform against the NCDA Code of Ethics to ensure it meets professional standards for client safety. The assignment requires students to examine how the platform addresses specific ethical requirements addressed in the Code, for example:

• Data Security (F.2.c.): Does the platform use current encryption to protect sensitive user information?
• Information Accuracy (F.6.a.): Is the career data provided by the tool valid and research-based?
• Benefits and Risks (F.4.a.): What are the tool’s limitations, and could its algorithms introduce bias?
• Privacy and Consent (F.8.b.): Does the tool clearly disclose how it uses or stores client data, especially when using AI?

Moving from a passive role to that of a critical consumer ensures that students can effectively vet digital tools for client safety and ethical compliance.

Preparing Future Practitioners for the Digital Landscape
Integrating technology in counselor education extends the student's future toolkit. Technology-based assignments shift instruction from theory to practice and ensure graduates are prepared for a digital landscape. Educators have the critical opportunity to provide students with the competencies necessary to navigate modern career development through the integration of practical assignments. These course activities maintain the human connection central to our profession while embracing technological advancement.

References

Forage. (n.d.). Forage job simulations. https://www.theforage.com/simulations 

Hartford Funds. (n.d.). Building your digital presence worksheet. https://www.hartfordfunds.com/practice-management/better-prospecting.html 

National Career Development Association. (2024). 2024 NCDA code of ethics. https://www.ncda.org/aws/NCDA/asset_manager/get_file/3395?ver=738703 

Patel, S. J., & Joiner-Hill, M. (2025). The ILPL digital presence framework and integrating generative AI. [webinar]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udRsAaApIK8 

Plachy, C. (2023). What is digital presence, and how should your business build it? Cloudflight. https://www.cloudflight.io/en/blog/what-is-digital-presence/ 

Stobierski, T. (2025, July 29). How to conduct a personal brand audit: Step-by-step process. Harvard Business School Online. https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/brand-audit 

Regina Gavin Williams, PhD, LCMHC (NC), QS, NCC, is a Clinical Specialist in the Department of Online Counselor Education at The College of New Jersey. She is also a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor (NC) and Qualified Supervisor working in private practice. Her teaching interests include career counseling, multicultural and gender issues in counseling, and practicum in counseling. Her research focuses on the mental health/wellness outcomes of adolescents aging out of the foster care system, with a secondary research focus related to the intersection of career development and diversity. She currently serves on the North Carolina Career Development Association Executive Board and as a Field Editor for the National Career Development Association’s Career Convergence Magazine. She can be reached at williare@tcnj.edu.

Lisa Cardello, PhD, LPC, NCC, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Online Counselor Education at The College of New Jersey. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor (NJ), Certified Career Counselor (NCDA), National Certified Counselor, and MBTI Certified Professional. Dr. Cardello is also a past participant of NCDA's Counselor Educator Academy, North Atlantic Region Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (NARACES) Emerging Leaders Program participant, past president of the New Jersey Career Development Association and serves as a Field Editor for the National Career Development Association’s Career Convergence Magazine.. She has a New Jersey-based private practice, Career Clarity Counseling and Consulting. Lisa can be reached at lisamcardello@gmail.com