CAREER DEVELOPMENT in TURKEY: An Evolving Profession

Chapter 3

CAREER DEVELOPMENT in TURKEY:An Evolving Professionby Dean W. Owen, Fidan Korkut-Owen, andM. Fulya KurterAbstractThe modern country of Turkey lies at a unique place geographically, partAsian and Middle Eastem and part European. For millinea it has beenthe crossroads of cultures, languages, ideas and trade. As a modem andrising industrial and economic power in the region it is now a candidatefor membership in the European Union. It is this identification with itswestem neighbors rather than the border states of Iran, Iraq, and Syriathat accounts for many aspects of its current identity and culture. Tur-key's population is very young and growing fast. It will soon rival thatof Germany with a rapidly expanding economy that is changing from amral and agricultural base to an urban and industrialized base. The needfor career development and planning has been widely recognized and isbeing implemented at all levels in the society from elementary schoolsto work with displaced adult workers. This paper addresses the integra-tion of career and vocational counseling, information services and theconstantly evolving roles of career development professionals in Turkey.The adoption of such ideas is strongly embraced, but the specific roles,functions and expression of these ideas in professional training programsand in professional service delivery is currently undergoing expectedand normal growing pains as career development concepts become fullyadopted within the country and culture of Turkey.

IntroductionThe modem country of Turkey is now, as it always has been, a bridgebetween the continents of Asia and Europe. With Greece and Bulgariato the west and Georgia, Armenia, Iran, Iraq, and Syria to the east, thisgeographic location has contributed to Turkey's identity as a place whereeastem and westem cultures, languages, and philosophies collide. Withone foot in Europe and a strong desire to identify with the west, Turkey isalso a country with a deep and abiding sense of middle-eastern traditionsand culture. With the prospect of European Union membership in thefuture, Turkey has made a considerable commitment to the adoption ofsocial and ecomonic systems and infrastmcture far more like those of itswestern neighbors than with its eastern ones. That is most certainly true

Spring 2011 Career Planning and Adult Development JOURNAL 39

of its educational system which has embraced the idea of western stylecounseling and guidance as an integral component of its schools, collegesand universities.

At the time of the creation of the modem Turkish Republic in 1923,Turkey's economy was based primarily on agriculture. Aside from theprincipal population centers of Istanbul, the ancient city often called thecapital of capitals, Ankara, the new Turkish capital from 1923, and themajor seaport of Izmir on the southeast coast, Turkey was primarily ruraland poor. Over the past 100 years the country has experienced funda-mental changes in the ethnic composition of its population. Its form ofgovernment, especially in the past 50 years, has seen a meteoric expan-sion of its industrial and manufacturing base to become one of the majoreconomic players in the Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and Europeanregions. This rapid movement has resulted in dramatic changes andchallenges that have affected every aspect of Turkish life. Particularlysignificant have been the changes in education, social services, and em-ployment patterns with career development issues being among the mostdemanding as Turkey has taken its position alongside Germany, Franceand other advanced industrial countries. Many of the recent changesin Turkish culture have been accelerated by a comittment to seek fullmembership in the European Union, The founding father of the moderncountry of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, believed strongly in secularand western ideology and followed the tenent that Turkey had to thinklike the west in order to catch up with the West, Under his leadership thecountry began what can only be described as a cultural revolution thatbegan with the adoption of western ideas that has brought the country toits current position in the middle-east.

Demographic OverviewThe current population of Turkey is estimated to be approaching 74million, with more than 75 per cent of the population living in cities andtowns. This shift to an urban lifestyle represents one of the most funda-mental changes in Turkish culture to have occurred over the past 70 years(Mango, 2004), Perhaps one of the most telling numbers is that half ofthe population is under the age of 30, Employment figures for 2010reveal a total workforce of 26 million and an unemployment rate thatover the past few years has hovered between 11 per cent and 14 per cent(TUIK, 2011), The relative youth of the Turkish population representsa distinct challenge in the sense that a large segment of the population isstill in need of education and training for jobs that may not exist in thefuture, Inspite of rapid growth in the past, the general slowdown in eco-nomic growth has affected Turkey just as it has so many other countriesin the Middle East and Mediterranean regions,

40 Career Planning and Adult Development JOURNAL Spring 2011

T irkish Educational System and Choice PointsFundamental to understanding the career development process in Turkeyis an awareness of an educational system that is, in many ways, far dif-ferent from that in the west. Those living in the U.S., for example growinto adulthood completely permeated with the idea that one's career islargely a matter of personal choice, and the freedom to explore, choose,prepare for and enter occupations is a fundamental human right. This is-sue of personal freedom to choose extends throughout one's lifetime andas one matures and life situations change, one is again free to choose newprograms of education, new careers, and take advantage of training op-portunités well into late adulthood if one is so inclined. With the increas-ing availability of online educational programs and training opportunitiestailored toward working individuals as well as the unemployed, afford-ability often becomes the only limiting key factor. Essentially those inthe west have extensive freedom to choose career options and prepara-tion programs for those careers which are widely available.

This same idea would seem quite foreign to the average Turkish citizenwho is the product of a highly centralized educational system that reliesheavily upon nationally administered achievement examinations thatdetermine a student's eligibility for continued study. This process beginsquite early with a national test (SBS) administered to all students at theend of the 8th grade. The exam is part of a larger program designed tofacilitate transition to secondary school, but performance on this testdetermines which of several types of high school a student will attend.The type of high school a student attends greatly determines the potentialof one attending post secondary education. Students seeking post sec-ondary education must successfully negotiate a second national exami-nation at the end of high school (OSS) which is the national universityadmission and placement examination. Students scoring high enoughare assigned to universities and programs within those institutions by anational placement system. In 2010 this national entrance and placementexamination was taken by 1,588,624 students and almost 328,000 wereselected for four-year university study (OSYM, 2010). This resulted inan admission rate of 21 per cent. The same examination is used to selecttwo-year technical college students and students permitted to enroll in anational open university system of online education. When all categoriesof educational institutions are included, the final admission rate for 2010was 41.9 per cent. Essentially only four of every ten students seekingpost-secondary education will be permitted to continue under the currentsystem.

It must be emphasized that such a system is highly competitive, withstudents having to make important career decisions while still in middleschool, and many students will attend one of more years of evening


prep-school classes to enhance their ability to perform on an exam thatwill determine their chances of being selected for university study. Thisexamination is administered one time per year and a decision to changemajors, something done quite routinely by U.S. students, requires newpreparation and re-examination the following year in the hope of quali-fying for admission in a new field of study. A complete and thoroughdescription of this system is beyond the scope of the present article, butsuffice to say that Turkish students' lives are dominated by a series ofhigh stakes tests that literally are life-determining experiences. Such asystem does not encourage adult learners or non-traditional students, andmakes for high stress for young people and older people seeking retrain-ing or re-entry into competitive employment later in life.

Providers of Career Development ServicesThe principal providers of career guidance and counseling services areschool counselors who direct much of their time and effort to schoolwide programs designed to assist students in preparing for the all impor-tant exams mentioned above. The exams in the 8th grade and the 12thgrade assume central importance in the lives of students and their fami-lies and the rigidity of the system requires that the best possible decisionsbe made at both levels.

School counselors utilize a full range of assessment tools and programsdesigned to facilitate student knowledge about career options and the re-quired preparation for those occupations. These assessment programs areadministered at the middle and high school levels and are built aroundfoundational ideas of assisting students to become aware of themselvesin the three areas of vocational preference, aptitudes and work values(Korkut,2007).

The school counseling concept was introduced to Turkey during the1950s through international programs sponsored by the U.S. Govern-ment. The arrival of this western concept of counseling brought withit a heavy emphasis on career development, including ideas of careereducation, exploration, and selection. These processes were supportedby materials and assessment tools that had been translated from English.The past 10 years have seen the rapid development of materials specifi-cally designed to refieet the realities of Turkish life, language and culture,and today there is far less reliance upon translated materials adaptedfrom foreign sources. Additionally, public schools are served by regionalGuidance and Research Centers where counselors and psychologists pro-vide material support and inservice training to school counselors in theirrespective areas.

Other than in the public schools where career education and guidanceservices are provided by school counselors, the services to adults are


provided by a wide variety of individuals with varying degrees of train-ing and specialization. An indication, perhaps, of the challenges that lieahead in this field is the fact that the term career counseling and careercounselor have been adopted as working titles by a great many individu-als, private practitioners, institutional and government workers, andcorporate human relations employees. At this point there seems to be noclear distinction between those who provided career counseling servicesand those who collect, analyze and dispense workforce and employ-ment information for the purposes of placement. As the result, careercounselors may hold advanced degrees in counseling or psychology ormay possess a bachelor's degree in a field totally unrelated to counsel-ing. Although there is no widely accepted specialty in career or voca-tional development within the field of counseling as yet, the programsin counselor preparation at the undergraduate level which are offeredby 42 universities across Turkey, provide training in career develop-ment and vocational counseling. This training typically takes the formof a six-hour block of coursework composed of a three-hour traditionalclass in theory and practice followed by a three-hour clinical practice orpracticum class in which students are placed in schools or agencies inthe community and gain practical experience under the supervision of afield supervisor and from their university instructor. Graduate programsin counselor preparation similarly include required coursework in careerdevelopment theory and practice.

Although career development is increasingly considered an integralcomponent of counselor training, one source of confusion in this fieldof practice is partially related to limited opportunities for specializedtraining. Dedicated university level programs to prepare career develop-ment specialists are still limited in Turkey. There are currently only threegraduate level programs available in Turkey that provide such special-ized training and they are to be found in departments associated withbusiness and the human resources management field. The institutionproviding these specialized programs are Ankara University (IKDAM,2007), Bahçe§ehir University (Bahçe§ehir University, 2010), and IstanbulUniversity (ISTANBUL KAGEM, 2010). Bahcesehir University is alsohome to the Global Career Development Facilatator Program (GCDF) inTurkey. Currently many GCDFs in Turkey are contributing to the expan-sion of the field and introducing various services in career development.The GCDF program has become especially popular among free-lanceconsultants who also complete certificate programs in coaching andcounselors who want to expand their scope of practice (BUSEM, 2010).

Career Development Services in TurkeyVocational counseling and career development services are a relativelynew idea in Turkey and the field is struggling to acquire a clear and


specific identity. The services that have been available have evolved asa component of more general school based guidance services providedto students at the elementary and secondary levels. Career guidance andcounseling is a significant component of school based guidance servicesin the public schools of Turkey. Despite having to assume the respon-sibility for providing career and vocational counseling services, manycounselors are faced with providing these services with varying degreesof formal preparation and training in the field. Currently, there is no stan-dard of preparation in the field of career and vocational counseling andindeed, such courses may not even be part of many counselor preparationprograms.

A study by Korkut (2007) surveyed 141 school counselors employedin schools in the metropolitan Ankara region. A particularly interestingfinding was that 62 per cent of the respondents reported graduating froma counseling or psychology program while 37 per cent appeared to befunctioning as a counselor without having had any formal training in thefield. Despite the fact that career counseling and guidance represents asignificant and important component of the entire guidance program, 25per cent of the sample reported having never taken a formal course incareer guidance or counseling. The study revealed that 73 per cent ex-pressed the idea that such services should be made available to students.Results from the survey seem to suggest that the Internet is the primarysource of career counseling and guidance related information. Whenasked about future support and information, the respondents expresseda need for additional assessment instmments and integrated career andvocational guidance programs which could be implemented easily andquickly within the school stmcture.

A recent national initiative saw the adoption of an online assessment andcareer planning platform become available to all students in public andprivate elementary and secondary schools. This National VocationalInformation System (MBS), which became available on April 1,2010,through the Turkish Ministery of National Education (MEB) provides afully interactive website that provides online assessment, instant profileinformation and multiple links to both educational and career informa-tion. This project was the result of a cooperative effort with many institu-tions including National Employment Organization (ISKUR), HigherEducation Counsil (YOK), Turkish Statistical Instititions (TUIK), StatePlanning Organization (DPT), Turkish Confederation of Employers As-sociations (TISK), Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions (TURK-IS)and others (MEB, 2010).

Adult Career Development ServicesDedicated centers for career development at colleges and universities are


only now becoming widely adopted and such services for adults outsideof educational institutions are rare and in their infancy. The number ofcareer services at the university level is increasing but there is still widevariation in kinds of services provided. Private universities have takenthe lead in developing career centers although many public universitiesare quickly moving to make such services available, as well.

For young adults, the career services are mainly integrated to university,which means that the ones who do not continue for university educationdo not have much opportunity to access such services on a communitylevel. Perhaps one of the most widely utilized services in Turkey is thatof the ISKUR, an organization affiliated with the Ministry of Labor andSocial Security. Some of the responsibilities assigned to this organiza-tion include:1. develop employment policies and reduce unemployment;2. provide current analysis of the work force, and train the work force;3. conduct job analysis on current and develop vocations;4. provide job placement services; and5. monitor the international labor market.

I§KUR then functions to enhance the employability of the Turkish workforce by providing current employment information and placementservices. Recently ISKUR has promoted the use of work titles such as"job counselors" and "vocation counselors" to refer to those who provideconsulting, recruiting, and placement functions. Yet the competenciesand educational background requirements are still not clearly definedalthough those who have counseling background have more chances toadapt to the job requirements.

ISKUR is represented across Turkey by sixty major Vocational Informa-tion Centers (MDM) These centers have become respositories for awide range of career information, as well as sources to assist individualsto link careers with educational and training programs across the country.Recent advances in the integration of technology have made this infor-mation available digitally in the form of compact disks and via onlinesources. In addition to the Vocational Information Centers, there arenearly three hundred Special Employment Offices located throughout thecountry whose function is primarily job placement. In this way, ISKUR,which functions as the Turkish national employment service, is able toprovide current national, regional and local information and services pri-marily oriented toward assisting individuals seeking employment. Theseservices include special programs of employment assistance for groupswith unique employment challenges including disabled workers, victimsof terror, formerly incarcerated public offenders, and for women, ISKURalso provides special orientation and assistance programs to children that


are orphans in state run institutions (ISKUR, 2000).

While ISKUR functions as a central clearing house for national employ-ment information and placement, Turkey also hosts the EuroguidanceCenter. This center links Turkey with thirty other centers throughout theEuropean Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA) to pro-mote mobility, assisting counselors and individuals to better understandopportunities available to European citizens throughout the region.

In addition to ISKUR there are a very few private consultancy firmsavailable for young adults to receive support from for their career is-sues. The ones who are already employed may have a chance to de-velop a personal development plan or to discuss their career paths withthe assistance of human resources staff within their companies onlyif these companies are well established in terms of corporate culture.Recently, one of the trends for large, international companies is to createor improve their competency and talent management functions sincethe competitive power of the organizations is increasingly reliant uponknowledge in order to attract and retain profitable employees withinthose organizations. A continuing trend, particularly among youngeremployees, is to move to new opportunities every few years. Companiesare now addressing this mobility issue by providing career developmentservices in house in an attempt to stem the brain drain and create upwardmobility opportunities within the corporation itself.

Generally, professionals from different sectors who have corporateexperiences in management seem to be one of the main human resourcesfor career services within Turkey. Their contribution is often stronglyinfluenced by business practice and has a strong human resourcestheme. What is often portrayed as career development is largely em-ployer or corporation centered rather than employee centered, and thedevelopmental or psychological aspects of work or career are neglectedor ignored. This is partially because very few counselors transfer theirskills to serve the young adult and adult population and work in this field.This is partially related to the limited training opportunities available interms of introducing career counseling as a different specialty area. Inreturn, the employers do not have the awareness to see the connectionbetween counseling and career development issues. That is why servicesfor adults are predominately concentrated on areas such as employabilityskills, job placement or internship arrangement. Recent years have seenthe development of for profit consultancy companies offeringcareer development and counseling services especially in the large urbancenters of Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and Adana. Despite the terms thatare frequently used to describe their services, they are primarily privateemployment agencies engaged in headhunting activities. The focus of

46 Career Planning and Adult Development JOURNALL Spring 2011

such for-profit companies is job placement and the traditional practiceof career counseling or long-term career development as it is understoodin the West is rarely practiced. Occasionally such firms are contractedto provide services to discontinued or redundant employees, but thereseems to be no evidence for any effort to determine the outcome of suchservices (Sultana & Watts, 2007).

Recent years have also seen a rapid growth of Intemet-based employ-ment agencies that provide primarily placement services on a for-feebasis. Additionally, career planning activities are now commonly offeredthrough the human resource departments of many of the large and wellinstitutionalized companies under the titles of success planning or jobenrichment.

Recent Developments and Interest in Career DevelopmentThe topic of career development has, over the past 10 years, become oneof interest to academics and industry alike. This interest in career de-velopment is largly an expression of the fundamental change in Turkishculture in which a substantial number of individuals have left small, poorand rural villages for employment opportunities in the larger cities. Thisin-migration to the population centers has brought both opportunity andproblems. The changes in Turkish life have triggered national and re-gional responses in an attempt to find ways to transition workers to newand modern occupations as well as to prepare youth for the 21st century.The changes in the very structure of Turkish society and the demandsand opportunities brought about by a strong comittment to achieve EUmember state status have created interest in research among intellectualsabout career development issues. The number of theses and disserta-tions on career development topics has increased dramatically during thepast 10 years as has the interest in developing assessment and counsel-ing related theories, tools and techniques that are culture specific and notmerely translated versions of westem material.

One such example is that of the Career Sailboat Model (Korkut-Owen,Açikel, Ariel, Çag, Demirta§, et.al., 2010). This Model was developedaccording to the idea that career development and the decision mak-ing process are affected by individual, social, legal/systemic issues andchange factors. Metaphorically, it is thought that career is a journeywith a sail boat. Every part of the sail boat symbolized main variables ofcareer development and decision. The model has an ecological base, andrepresents an attempt to create a model for career development that isbased upon constructivist, systemic, and post-modern approaches and isrelevant to modem Turkish realities. Using the model during the careercounseling process can help clients see about their career joumey andhelp them with career planning. This model is currently undergoing vali-

Spring 2011 Career Planning and Adult Development JOURNAE 47

dation in schools and universities in Turkey. The field of career develop-ment and counseling has tended over the years to rely on translated andadapted materials from foreign authors but this is beginning to change.The Career Values Cards (MEDEK), which was developed by KorkutOwen, Acar, Demir, Haskan et al.(2009) represents an attempt to developa counseling tool designed to represent Turkish values and ideas. TheMEDEK was developed and tested for use with high school students andresults indicated that it was an easy-to-use, understandable, and enjoy-able technique to increase self-awareness and enhance insight. It was alsoconsidered a source of important information for students engaged incareer counseling and career development, enhancing personal identifica-tion of personal career and work values.

Another trend worth mentioning is the rapid proliferation ofassociations or organized groups that purport to represent and promotecareer development. This is the source of some concern among academ-ics since many of these organizations appear to be more closely alignedwith human resources or employment and placement functions, ratherthan counseling and career development. As was mentioned earlier, theentire field of career development is rather in a state of flux at the mo-ment as the field appears to be evolving rapidly with increasing inter-est in many social sectors. Currently there is no consistent or coherentdefinition for the field or clear standards for training, scope and limit ofservices, or even a generally agreed upon statement of professional ethi-cal principles.

Recent years have witnessed the development and implementation of anumber of career related projects designed to meet the needs of specificgroups. An example of such a project is called Nar Taneleri (Parmagran-ate seeds) which seeks to promote mentoring. This project has resultedin a collaboration of the Personnel Executives Association (PERYON)and the Ministry of State for Women and Families with a goal of improv-ing the employability skills and personal development of young womenbetween ages 18-24 who were raised at orphanages (PERYON, 2009). Asecond example of such national career related projects is "Öz®ümüzleÜretiyoruz Projesi" (Produced by the Disabled), a project initiated bythe Foundation for the Physical Handicapped (FEV). This program seeksto promote and encourage the disabled to increase their self confidenceand self efficacy as well as their ultimate empoyability (FEV, 2007).

Challenges for the FutureCareer counseling in Turkey is generally perceived as either givingadvice for future work opportunities or giving feedback about assessmentresults (vocational preference, abilities, personality, values, etc.). That


is why even some of the education abroad firms that provide informa-tion about foreign study opportunities portray their services as careercounseling. Frequently, individuals from the private business sector whospeak publicly about Turkish job market trends or employment forecastsare described as career counselors. Counseling outside of the publicschools is still very much of an emerging profession in Turkey and careercounseling especially is in its infancy. No clear professional identity hasemerged, but what is clearly apparent is that the need for career develop-ment services designed for, and directed at, the adult population is recog-nized by the government, private consultants and academics alike.

As career development becomes more widely accepted into Turkishculture, there is likely to be continued definition of the roles and func-tions of practitioners along with greater acceptance of the services theycan provide. Those services would be designed to empower people tocope effectively with career development tasks (Spokane,1991) andwould include career counseling. Examples of these activities can becareer guidance, career education, computer assisted developmental pro-grams, computer information delivery systems, career support projectsfor different populations, and career fairs. Recent national initiatives toprovide current and online employment information that can be accessedby anyone has been a major development. Training individuals to fullyutilize this information and to integrate it into a coherent set of services issomething that is still in the future. The limited number of programs oftraining is likely to grow as the field of counseling becomes more widelyaccepted in Turkey. Opportunities for specialized training in careerdevelopment will likely increase. The need for such services is clearlyacknowledged, as the information system to support career decision-ing making is becoming more available. The greatest challenge for thefuture is the development of specialized programs of training to generateenough qualified practitioners to meet the demands.

A substantial obstacle to the future development in Turkey will be issuesof turf or ownership issues among practitioners. For example, programsdescribing themselves as career development are being developed inschools of Business and couched within the field of management orhuman resources. Other programs around the country that train coun-selors and psychologists are simultaneously mshing to develop trainingprograms that are likely to be based upon western concepts and models.Such programs stress the western idea of career counseling that involvesa formal relationship in which a professional counselor assists a client,to cope more effectively with career concems such as making a careerchoice, coping with career transitions, coping with job-related stress, orjob searching (Niles & Bowlsbey, 2008). For many in Turkey, the idea ofcareer counseling or career development is one of managing and pre-


senting employment information and distribution of that information toindividuals. In order to renovate the conceptual framework in the mindsof people which can represent the contemporary meaning and func-tion behind career counseling, more work in advocacy needs to be doneby the professors in the counseling field, and practitioners. Career andemployment information, as well as skilled counseling services, must bemerged, and this will require professionals from Business, Economicsand Management as well as Counseling, Human Services and Psychol-ogy to join in collaboration to meet the career development challengesfacing Turkey in the future.

ReferencesBahce§ehir University (2010), Bahçe§ehirUniversitesi Sosyal BilimlerEnstitüsü, Bahcesehir University Graduate School of Social Sciences],Retrieved March 18,2011from http://www,bahcesehir,edu,tr/files/sbe/GCDF%20MA%20hazirlikrev%20(3),doc

Busem (2010), Bahçe§ehir Ünivesitesi Sürekli Egitim Merkezi [Bah-cesehir University Continious Education Center], Retrieved March 18,201 lfrom http://busem,bahcesehir,edu,tr/program/detay/id/3

Fev (2007), Fiziksel Engelliler Vakfi, [Foundation for the PhysicalHandicaped], Öz®ümüzle Üretiyoruz Projesi [Produced by the Dis-abled], Retrieved March 18,2011from http://www,engelliler,com/proje_hakkinda,aspx

Ikdam (2007). insan Kaynaklan ve Kariyer Dani§manligi Ara§tirma veUygulama Merkezi [Center for the Study of Human Resources Manage-ment and Career Counseling], Retrieved March 18,2011from http://ikdam .ankara ,edu ,tr/

Iskur (2000), Tiirkiye í§ Kurumu [National Employment Organization],Tiirkiye Í§ Kurumunun görevleri [Responsibilities of National Employ-ment Organization], Retrieved March 23,201 lfrom http://www,iskur.gov.tr/LoadExternalPage.aspx?uicode=statturkiyeiskurumunungor

Istanbul Kagem (2010). Istanbul Üniversitesi Kariyer Geli§tirme Merkezi[Istanbul University Career Development Center], Retrieved March 18,201 lfrom http://kariyer.istanbul.edu.tr/menu_icerik.php?SubMenu=27

Korkut Owen, F. , Açikel, M., Anci, F., Çag, P., Demirta§, S. Et al,(2010), A suggested model for career counseling: Career Sail BoatModel, Paper presented at 12th Guidance Semposium, Arel Schools,istanbul, 27 March 2010,

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Korkut-Owen, F., Acar, T., Demir Y., Haskan Ö.et al. (2009). Card sorttechnique in career counseling: Pilot study about career values. InonuUniversity Journal of the Faculty of Education, 10 (2); 53-70.

Mango, A. (2004). Turks today. London: John Murray Publishers.

MEB (2010). Milli Egitim Bakanligi, Ulusal Mesleki Bilgi Sistemi[Ministery of National Education, National Career Information System],Retrieved March 23,2011from http://mbs.meb.gov.tr/

Niles S.G., & Harris-Bowlsbey, J. (2008). Career development institu-tions in the 21st century, (3rd ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Osym (2010). Yiiksek Ögretim Kurulu, Ögrenci Seçme ve Yerle§tirmeMerkezi Ba§kanligi [Higher Education Council, Student Selection andPlacement Center], 2010-ÖSYS Merkezi Yerle§tirme Sonuçlari [ 2010Placement Results], Basin Duyurusu [Press Release], 13. August, 2010,Retrieved March 23,2011from www.osym.gov.tr/dosya/l-56296/h/osys-yerlestirmebulten2010 .pdf

Peryon (2009). Türkiye Personel Yönetimi Dergisi [Personnel Execu-tives Association], Nar Taneleri, [Parmagranate seeds], Retrieved March18,2011from http://www.peryon.org.tr/nartaneleri_proje2009.asp

Spokane, A.R. (1991). Career interventions. Upper Saddle River, NJ:Prentice Hall.

Sultana, R.G. & Watts, A.G. (2007). Career guidance in the Middle Eastand North Africa. International Journal for Educational and Vocation-al Guidance S (I), 19-34.

Tuik (2011). Türkiye Ba§bakanlik, Türkiye Istatistik Kurumu [PrimeMinistery Republic of Turkey, Turkish Statistical Institute], Hane Halkii§ Gücü Ara§tirmasi [Household Labour Force Survey], 2010, HaberBülteni [Press Release], number 42,1 March 2011, Retrieved March 22,2011 from http://www.turkstat.gov.tr/PreHaberBultenleri.do?id=8428

About the authorsDean Owen is professor emeritus at Morehead State University inMorehead, Kentucky where he served as member of the graduate facultyfor 32 years and was coordinator of the Counselor Education Program.Since 2008 he has been a visiting professor on the faculty of Middle EastTechnical University (METU) in Ankara, Turkey and is currently visit-ing professor at the METU campus in Northern Cyprus. Previously heserved as a member of the European Faculty of Boston University andhas taught in Germany, Spain, England, and Costa Rica. As a careercounselor educator he has also been a consultant to the U.S. Government


and served as a Vocational Expert Witness for the Social Security Admin-istration for more than 30 years. He eamed the BA in Psychology andthe MA in Rehabilitation Counseling at the University of South Floridaand the PhD in Counseling at the University of Florida. Contact him asfollows: Dean Owen, 250 Valley View Road, Morehead, KY 40351 USA.

Fidan Korkut Owen is professor and chair of the Counseling Programat Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey. She is a counselor educator andbegan her teaching career at Hacettepe in 1984. She earned the BA, MA,and PhD degrees at that institution. She was a visiting professor at theUniversity of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2002-03, and at MoreheadState University, KY, during the 2008-2009 fall semester. Her researchinterests include the fields of prevention, Wellness, counselor education,communication skills, and career counseling. She has been actively in-volved with many NBCC initiatives world-wide, and is a certified GlobalCareer Development Facilitator [GCDF] Instructor. In addition to heruniversity teaching she is actively engaged as a consultant and trainer forboth private and governmental agencies, and has written and publishedextensively in the field of career counseling. Contact her as follows:Fidan Korkut Owen, Gerede sokak 513 Asagi Ayranci 06540Ankara/Turkey, e-mail: [email protected]

M. Fulya Kurter is a GCDF Master Trainer, GCDF Program Coordina-tor of Turkey and lecturer at Bahcesehir University, Istanbul. She is alsothe former Director of the Career Center of the same institution. Since2005, she has been one of the program consultants of the biggest educa-tional foundation in Turkey, the Educational Volunteers Foundation ofTurkey (TEGV). She was involved in many HR and adult training proj-ects so far. She earned the BA in Counseling at Bogaziçi University andthe MA in Counseling at Marmara University, Istanbul, in addition to thegraduate courses she completed at the Counseling and Human Develop-ment Services Program [CHDS] at Kent State University, Ohio. Sheis also a psychodrama group therapist. She completed over 500 hoursof training at Istanbul Zerka Moreno Istanbul Psychodrama Institute,her graduation paper was published as a book chapter. Her expertise isoriented towards the practice of counseling, career counseling, exploringconstructivist approaches, and action methods in psychotherapy. She alsomaintains private practice at the Bakis Training and Counseling Center.Contact the authors as follows: Eulya Kurter, Bahcesehir University,Ciragan Cad. No:4l6 BesiktasI istanbul, TURKEY,e-mail: [email protected]


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CAREER DEVELOPMENT in TURKEY: An Evolving Profession

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