Mind It

Career Counseling is a process that will help you to know and understand yourself and the world of work in order to make career, educational, and life decisions. The goal of Career Counseling is to give you the knowledge and skills you need to make future career and life decisions.

Statements like “I have no idea what I want to do with my life”, “I don’t know what to major in”, “I’ve narrowed it down to a couple career options, but I’m having a hard time choosing between them”, “I know what I want to major in, but I have no idea what I want to do once I graduate.” pop into the mind of an individual who is confused about his/ her career. And career counseling is very important for such people.

A Career Counselor WILL:
(1) Help you figure out who you are and what you want out of your education, your career, and your life. (2) Be someone for you to talk to about your thoughts, ideas, feelings, and concerns about your career and educational choices, will help you sort out, organize, and make sense of your thoughts and feelings. (3) Help you identify the factors influencing your career development, and assess your interests, abilities, and values. (4) Help you locate resources and sources of career information. (5) Help you to determine next steps and develop a plan to achieve your goals.

People who participate in career counseling can benefit from the use of aptitude tests, or career testing. Career testing is often done online and provides insightful and objective information about which jobs may be suitable for the test taker based on his interests, values and skills. These tests provide a list of recommended jobs that match the test takers attributes. With psychometric testing, there is no pass or fail, but the quality of the information collected can vary. Psychometric testing is used to assess personality and intellectual levels. Usually, it uses multiple sets of questions. If the test taker is honest and the employed tests follow scientific standards, the results should be fairly accurate and useful for career counseling activities.

Why is career counseling important?

Selecting a career option determines your course of life. While a good decision at the right point of time can make your life pleasant, a wrong one can ruin it. In case of dilemma, it is also better to take professional help.

Therefore career counseling is probably the best option.

•Helps in determining a student’s true potential: Students who are confused or have no idea about their career preferences can use psychometric testing and counseling sessions to find out the right career options and the fields that interest them. Later students make the right choice regarding what course they want to enroll into to accomplish their career goals.

•Clear doubts: Career counseling can help students’ clear by knowing the true facts about the educational courses.

•Support and motivation: Building the motivational level of a student is necessary for long term success. This aids in improving overall performance and enhances social support.

Other benefits include:
• Let’s them decide their preferences and set a target.
• Helps the students co-relate between their current studies and planned careers
• Helps parents to plan for the career suited for their kids, therefore counselors counsel parents too.
• Helps the teachers in directing the students for their careers.
• Decentralization (prevents herding of students) of a particular stream of education.
• Their route towards earning is made short (prevents students from pursuing the courses which they do not require).

To conclude, the crux of career counseling is to provide the necessary guidance that would help the student in making the right choice regarding their career.

References:
What is career counseling? (2016). Retrieved from https://career.boisestate.edu/whatiscareercounseling/ on 15/5/2016.
Career counseling (2016). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Career_counseling on 15/5/2016.
Nair, R. (2014). Benefits of career counseling Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141028104128-105403512-benefits-of-career-counseling on 15/5/2016.
Griffith, N. (2015). How career counseling helps school students Retrieved from http://careerswiki.com/how-career-counselling-helps-school-students/ on 15/5/2016.

[Contributed by Jeffia Dias, Post Graduate student of psychology, during her internship.]