CCA Ethics & Professional Standards in Career Counseling 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A career counselor discovers that a client has been sharing the counselor's proprietary assessment tool with friends. What is the most appropriate first response?
- Immediately terminate the counseling relationship
- Address the issue directly with the client and clarify intellectual property expectations (Correct answer)
- Report the client to a professional licensing board
- Ignore it since no financial harm occurred
Correct answer: Address the issue directly with the client and clarify intellectual property expectations
Addressing the issue directly with the client preserves the relationship while clarifying boundaries around intellectual property.
Question 2: Under NCDA ethical guidelines, which situation would most clearly require a career counselor to break client confidentiality?
- A client expresses frustration about their current employer
- A client reveals plans to sabotage a coworker's career (Correct answer)
- A client discloses a past criminal conviction
- A client admits to lying on a resume years ago
Correct answer: A client reveals plans to sabotage a coworker's career
Planned harm to an identifiable third party triggers the duty to protect, which can override confidentiality obligations.
Question 3: When a career counselor uses a commercially published interest inventory, ethical practice requires that the counselor:
- Only use norms relevant to the client's demographic group
- Obtain written permission from the publisher before each use
- Interpret results within the limits of their training and the test's validated purpose (Correct answer)
- Share raw scores directly without interpretation to avoid bias
Correct answer: Interpret results within the limits of their training and the test's validated purpose
Ethical test use requires interpreting results within the scope of one's training and the assessment's validated applications.
Question 4: A career counselor working at a university is asked by a faculty member to share a student-client's career assessment results to inform a classroom project. The counselor should:
- Share de-identified aggregate data only if the student consents (Correct answer)
- Comply because faculty are part of the university system
- Refuse entirely since educational use is never permitted
- Share results since they are not therapy records
Correct answer: Share de-identified aggregate data only if the student consents
Sharing even de-identified data for third-party purposes requires client consent to uphold confidentiality.
Question 5: Which of the following best describes the ethical concept of 'fidelity' in career counseling?
- Maintaining accurate financial records for services rendered
- Honoring commitments and being trustworthy in the counseling relationship (Correct answer)
- Ensuring equal access to career services for all populations
- Avoiding conflicts of interest with employers and recruiters
Correct answer: Honoring commitments and being trustworthy in the counseling relationship
Fidelity refers to being loyal and trustworthy, honoring promises and professional obligations to clients.
Question 6: A career counselor who has recovered from substance use disorder is counseling a client with a similar history. Ethically, the counselor should:
- Disclose their history to build rapport and demonstrate empathy
- Recuse themselves from the case to avoid dual relationships
- Use their personal experience to guide interventions without disclosure unless therapeutically relevant (Correct answer)
- Document their personal history in the client's file for transparency
Correct answer: Use their personal experience to guide interventions without disclosure unless therapeutically relevant
Self-disclosure should only occur when it serves the client's therapeutic interests, not the counselor's need to connect.
Question 7: An employer asks a career counselor to conduct assessments and share results to screen job candidates. This arrangement is ethically problematic primarily because:
- Career counselors are not trained in employment law
- The employer—not the candidate—becomes the primary client, creating a conflict of interest (Correct answer)
- Commercial assessment tools cannot be used for hiring decisions
- Salary negotiations are outside a career counselor's scope
Correct answer: The employer—not the candidate—becomes the primary client, creating a conflict of interest
When the employer is the client, the counselor's obligations shift and candidates may not receive protections afforded to individual clients.
CCA Ethics & Professional Standards in Career Counseling 2
A career counselor discovers that a client has been sharing the counselor's proprietary assessment tool with friends.
What is the most appropriate first response?