Client expectations have been studied infrequently in career counseling. This study provides preliminary data about precounseling expectations, which were conceptualized as preferences and anticipations. Ninety-two university students ( 22men and 70 women) who sought career counseling completed an open-ended questionnaire. The results suggested the following conclusions: (a) Clients have fairly clear ideas about what they want (preferences) from career counseling and about what the experience should be like; (b) clients are somewhat less certain about what the career counseling experience will actually be like (anticipations) and less optimistic about it; (c) a number of mismatches exist between clients' preferences and anticipations; (d) clients do not have well-developed expectations about their dislikes in career counseling; and (e) few differences are evident between clients who have had previous counseling and those who have not.

Values are widely viewed as central to the selection of, and subsequent satisfaction with, life roles. But because no conceptual framework has been advanced to guide the work of practitioners and researchers, values are widely ignored by both groups. This article seta forth several propositions aimed at remedying this oversight by clarifying the importance of values in both decision making and life satisfaction. VALUES DEFINEDValues are cognized representations of needs that, when developed, provide standards for behavior, orient people to desired end states

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