A Study of the Influence of Career Counseling Perception on the Employment Competencies of Design Students in Central Taiwan

In recent years, many advanced countries have been outsourcing their lower-skilled jobs to other countries for manufacturing. As a result, employment opportunity has been declining for younger generations in advanced countries. Moreover, the extensive application of production technologies also leads to the replacement of labors by automatic machines. The employment opportunity of young adults has also gradually been deprived. It has become more difficult for students to make a career decision during college. After graduation, students also encounter the difficult choice of getting a job or going to graduate school. Therefore, career counseling for a student is critical to his/her career development. It is required to assist students in developing a correct career concept so that they can make an appropriate choice for their career. College students who are studying in design-related departments in central Taiwan were selected as the research target in this study. A total of 460 questionnaire copies were dispatched and 378 valid questionnaire copies were returned with a rate of response of 82%. The result of this research is threefold, as follows. 1. Career counseling has a significant positive influence on the vocational self-concept. 2. Vocational self-concept has a significantly positive influence on the employment competencies. 3. Career counseling has a significantly positive influence on employment competencies. We proposed recommendations based on the results of the investigation and analysis. It is expected that, the result can help schools provide appropriate and proper career counseling in order to assist and guide students into making proper career choices.