It is important to plan your career properly. Wrong planning will mean losing your career forever and missing out on plenty of opportunities. You may rely on your family members, friends and relatives to derive advice on career planning. But without taking professional support and advice, you will not be able to reach greater heights in your desired field. Whether you are an established professional having several years of experience and expertise or someone having minimal work experience, you are likely to be confused about your career options. Seeking change to some other domain of expertise can be a challenging task. This is where you should seek career counselling for students from the professionals.Â
What is career counselling?
It is considered to be a process to help students to understand their needs better. The professionals with their years of knowledge, experience and exposure can help students to make well-informed decisions pertaining to their career. Several options are present when obtaining career support and guidance.Â
Who is a career counsellor?
The career counsellor is also referred to as the career advisor. The certified and experienced professional can provide assistance to identify yourself, understand better your educational needs, what you want from your career and life. There are numerous benefits to be derived by visiting the career counsellor. It is a commonly asked question especially by those students who wish to make initial career choices, select the right subjects or plan career change.
Major benefits derived from working along with the career counsellor
- Determining values, interests and strengths: The well-trained and qualified counsellors tend to use different types of career evaluation tools. Such tools can help match your specific abilities, strengths and skills with appropriate education and career. It can also point towards career options keeping in mind your specific interests and strengths. This way, you will not select anything in which you might be weaker or feel less inspired, thus resulting in frustration.Â
- Setting the right goals and direction: The counsellor supports you to determine your interests and strengths. Next, they provide adequate guidance by evaluating your available options. Accordingly, they will identify the different steps to follow to proceed steadily towards the set goals and objectives. Hence the task undertaken to identify interests and strengths is sure to allow you to work with achievable, realistic objectives. It can be quite useful if you happen to struggle with making changes or setting goals. The knowledgeable career counsellor will make you feel more accountable towards someone besides yourself. Career development is considered to be a lifelong process. Hence, it is important for everyone to derive proper and timely career counselling, ranging from school students to experienced professionals desiring job change. The counsellor will conduct series of evaluations, discussions to determine your specific needs and understand what will match you perfectly. Some essential questions will also be asked like:
- Any work-related preferences, interests and values.
- Favourite work experiences you had till date.Â
- Type of relationships you enjoyed with your organisers, managers and leaders. Did you disagree with others at any point of time? If yes, then what steps were taken to resolve such conflicts?
- What do you do to learn best? What steps you take to overcome challenges? When do you feel the most challenged while learning?
- Realizing world of work: Several job options are present that career changers and job seekers may apply. However, it can also be quite overwhelming. The real work world tends to experience dramatic, sudden changes. Hence if you are a beginner, then you need to have a strong focus on those careers, which will offer you with more prospects and opportunities in the coming years. There are also several jobs in the market that were not present about a decade ago. Therefore, if career change is desired, then you need to know the type of jobs to apply, the emerging ones, etc. which can fit perfectly your skill set. This is apart from those which had existed at the time you started your career journey. The professional career counsellors have good knowledge of the real-world scenario and hence, can offer valuable advice to students belonging to all domains and fields. This way, you will be able to wide your perspective about the suitable careers you can apply for.Â
- Improving your personal brand: Changing or securing jobs will require you to make smart decisions. Career counsellors with years of experience behind them can offer additional support to construct your CV, create LinkedIn profile, to write cover letters, job applications, interview practice, etc. They will also help research potential employers. They can guide in you in several ways to create a ‘personal brand’ of yourself, thus allowing you to market yourself to potential employers.Â
- Identifying choices and options: With the ever-changing job market creating several new opportunities and challenges, people are in greater need to seek assistance to make the right career step. The career counsellor allows you to identify several fields that match perfectly your abilities, strengths, skills and education. Each work field is likely to have several potential job opportunities depending on other factors that need to be taken into consideration. It can be providing for living needs as well as connecting with core values.Â
- Helps understand better available career options: You can discuss with the talented career counsellor on the career options which interest you. Discussing allows you to understand better the factors that influence career development like background, values, and capabilities. Interests and personality. This will enable you to know what type of training or education you are to pursue to achieve your desired career goals. The counsellor will also provide you with valuable information and the right resources crucial for your self-development. You can also discuss potential strategies to identify employers who may offer jobs or internships in your specified areas of interest.Â
Therefore, with proper career guidance and counselling from the best counsellors, you will be able to take your career to the next level and enjoy better rewards and benefits that come with it.