Studying the Experience of Transition by Graduates in Helping Professions to Professional Careers

Developing a stable professional identity, especially in counseling is a time-taking process. The goal of this study was to analyze the experiences of graduates in helping professions on the way of becoming professionals, so that the obtained data be used to clarify, in teaching, and for career supervision. The research method was qualitative in nature (phenomenological) with purposeful sampling. The sample population consisted of 23 counseling graduates with average of 4 years of working experience. The interviews were semi-structured in which the participants shared their experience of becoming professionals. Following data collection, coding and sentences related to their most important experiences (feelings of professional identity, expectations involved, counseling metaphors, and perspectives about rewards in counseling jobs) were drawn and analyzed. Responses showed indicated that participants seemed to be aware of profession's requirements and posses a sense of worth and effectiveness in the profession. Results of this study show the strengths, risks, and areas in need of growth in process of training counselors, which can be useful for academic programs in counseling.