Career Consultant Essay Exam Preparation: What I Relied On When I Couldn't Find the 'Correct Answer'

In this post, I will write about my preparation for the "essay exam" for the Career Consultant certification.

To be honest, the essay portion was even more difficult than the written exam.

The reason is that it is difficult to grasp until the very end what exactly you need to write to get the "correct answer."

I just did as many practice problems as I could

Basically, what I did was practice with past exam questions. Or rather, from the perspective of solving problems, that was all I could do.

I proceeded by doing:
• 10 past exam papers

• Adapting old-format questions to the new question and answer formats

I believe that getting used to the essay format is a huge part of it.
How to read the verbatim transcript, how to pick up on the client's words, and how to align them with the questions—these are things you can't really master without actually putting pen to paper.

So, I just did as many as I could.
Of course, I timed myself, but I allocated 40 minutes to complete them, taking into account the anxiety of the actual exam.

But I still didn't know the correct answer

However, this is where the difficulty of the essay exam lies.

Even after doing it, I didn't know if it was "really correct."

There are many people online who publish sample answers.
I looked at quite a few of them. I was also shown some commercial essay preparation textbooks by an acquaintance.

But honestly,

I often felt, "This perspective seems a bit different from what I heard in the Manpower course..."

Of course, it's not a matter of which one is correct.

However, since the grading criteria for the essay exam are somewhat of a black box, I think it's an area where you can easily get lost the more information you look at.

What I ultimately trusted was the 'advice from my instructor'

Amidst all that, what I relied on as my core until the very end was the advice I received directly from my instructor during the course.

Ultimately,

• Where to look in the verbatim transcript
• What to capture from the client
• Which words to emphasize

I believe this "perspective" is what is important for the essay exam.

Conversely, once I was able to read the transcript from that perspective, all that was left was to verbalize it as an answer.

The essay exam feels less like a "test of writing good sentences" and more like a test of what perspective you use to understand the client.

Reflections on essay exam preparation

At first, you really don't feel like you're getting anywhere with the essay exam.

"Is this right?"
"What kind of score will I get?"
"Is this way of writing okay?"

I was in that state the whole time.

But at a certain point, I gradually began to see:

• What is being asked
• The points the client is struggling with
• The direction in which I should write

I feel that a certain amount of "volume" was necessary to reach that point.

This time I wrote about the overall picture, but next time,



• What perspective I actually used to read the transcripts

• What I was conscious of when writing my answers
• My own way of structuring the essay
I plan to write about more specific content like that.