Abstract: This paper conducts qualitative research on college counselors’ professional development stage and effectiveness of career planning. By the opportunity of 42 national counselors training program, we interviewed 37 college counselors with different ages and seniority levels by depth semi-structured interview survey. The findings are as follows: firstly, 4 kind of important factors have significant effect on effectiveness of career planning. Secondly, the counselor career development is divided into four distinct stages, which is exploratory, formation, maintenance, and specialization stage. Therefrom, we explore the relationship between the stages of career development and career planning effectiveness, and propose college counselors’ career development path breakthrough recommendations.