The need to knows for applying for counselling jobs in NZ

• What do counsellors do?
• The qualifications you’ll need to be a counsellor in NZ
• The soft skills you need to be a counsellor in NZ
• What school subjects will help you become a counsellor in NZ?
• The salary expectations for counsellors in NZ

A trained counsellor generally helps clients deal with personal problems through talk-based therapy. This usually involves helping them to clarify their issues, understand their origins, and develop strategies to move forward.

Sometimes, it will involve working closely with other medical professionals, such as doctors, to provide wrap-around care for individuals who need a higher level of support.

As a counsellor you might be working with people who have:

• Experienced bereavement.
• Common mental health issues such as anxiety, depression or stress.
• Struggles in their personal or professional lives.
• Experienced trauma or abuse.
• Addiction problems.
• Questions around their gender or sexual identity.

While psychologists are required to have at least a Master’s level degree in psychology, you don't necessarily need to have a qualification to be a counsellor in New Zealand. 

However, if you want to become a member of the New Zealand Association of Counsellors (NZAC), as of 2019, you need to have a minimum of an undergraduate level qualification in counselling.

Being registered with NZAC, which is also known as Counselling Aotearoa, has career benefits, as this body has high training standards and regular professional development. It is also seen as a trusted organisation and, therefore, one that patients are likely to have faith in.

When you’re dealing with sensitive issues on a daily basis, it should come as no surprise that you’ll need to develop a very specific set of soft skills in order to be an effective counsellor. 

Among the most important are:

Of course, you won’t have had direct experience with all of the issues that patients will come to you with. However, you’ll need to be able to see things the way that they do, and understand why they’re feeling this way. In other words, you’ll need to be empathetic.

This will mean, sometimes, trying to put yourself in the shoes of someone who you may not always agree with. This will be necessary to fully understand the emotional or personal situation they’re facing.

Going hand in hand with empathy is being accepting and non-judgmental. It can take a lot of courage for some people to seek professional help for the problems they’re experiencing, so you need to make them feel comfortable that they’re in an environment where they can share and get things off their chest. 

Again, this may mean listening to people who have done, or believe things, that don’t fit with your views of right and wrong. However, it’s your job to remain professional at all times.

Remember, effective communication is a two-way street that involves both listening and speaking. Being a good listener is an incredibly important attribute of a good counsellor, but you’ll also need to communicate well yourself so that you can use your training to provide patients with actionable solutions that will hopefully help them move forwards.

A big part of counselling is working through problems together. Given the complexity and difficulty of the many issues you’ll be confronted with, this process is definitely more of a marathon than a sprint.

As well as the time you’ll need to invest in properly understanding the whole picture of what the patient is telling you, you’ll also need to be patient in helping them find solutions that will work for them, and then attempting to put these strategies into action.

This one should go without saying, but you’ll be expected to keep everything your patients tell you in the strictest confidence. In addition, you’ll need to keep up-to-date with any changes to any changes to the laws and ethics surrounding counselling work in New Zealand.

One of the rewarding, yet testing, aspects of being a counsellor is that you’ll be interacting with all sorts of different people who are facing all sorts of different challenges in life.

No matter how great your formal training was, you won’t be prepared for every scenario you come across. This means that being able to research, and even tap into peer network knowledge, in order to ensure you’re giving the best possible support, is a crucial skill to have.

This can be particularly important when helping patients who come from different cultural backgrounds to you. Understanding the cultural context to the challenges they have can often be very important in informing the approach you take, as well as ensuring that the patient feels at ease while talking to you.

There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to human lives or emotions. This means that, even after years in the profession, you’ll need to be able to tailor your approach to the person sitting in front of you.

This is another reason why keeping up-to-date with the latest research, as well as continuing your professional and personal development are massively important to being a successful counsellor.

While counselling is a fulfilling career, and a vital service for those who need it, there’s no doubt that it has the potential to take a toll on your own mental health.

Not only is it important for your own wellbeing to look after yourself, if you don’t, you’ll also be less able to offer effective support to your patients.

If you want to study at a tertiary level, you need to have qualifications up to NCEA Level 3. While there are no mandatory subjects you need to have studied at school, it would help to have a solid grounding in any of the following:

• Psychology.
• Health education.
• English.
• Social studies.