Generally, counselling is the process of helping an individual by giving him/her guidance, moral support, and exploring solutions for his/her problems. Counselling is mainly related to a professional who helps you out from the problems. This professional is known as Counsellor who expertise in understanding human behaviour, their personality, and knows well how to give the right direction to their thoughts. Career Counseling is a process with the primary focus on helping the person to understand himself as well as work trends so that one can take a wise step in terms of his/ her career and education. Career Counseling helps in sort out the range of problems such as low concentration levels, poor time management, and trust issues with the parents and family, non-agreement between parents and children on career selection.
Nowadays, career counselling is become a need of the hour, as most students pick commonly known streams as their career. It is an effort for students; give them guidance while they are choosing their career paths as per their interest and stream of academics. There are a number of factors that influence your career development, including your interests, abilities, values, personality, background, and circumstances and career counselling is the way that will help you to know and understand yourself and the world of work in order to make a career, educational, and life decisions. Through the career counselling, the counsellor comes to know about the interests and also the strengths and weaknesses of the candidate which further helps in selecting the appropriate career for the candidate. The objective of career counselling is not only to help you in making the decisions you need to make in your career path but also to give you the knowledge and skills you will need to make future career and life decisions.
Services Offered by Career Counsellors
There are some services listed below given by the career consultants or counsellors to their customers.
- Career Counseling.
- Training and Development.
- Skill Test.
- Career Guidance.
- Career Workshop.
- Admission Guidance.
- Study Abroad.
- Education Planner.
- GD (Group Discussion) Tips.
- Placement Assistance.
Importance of Career Counselling
Career counselling plays a vital role in the student’s life. There are several roles played by career counselling in the making of a student to a professional as discussed below.
- Development of Student: By teaching the subjects to students cannot develop them intellectually. Self-knowledge is the factor which enhances the intellectual of learners. It is the forgotten factor in our educational system. So, it’s the primary focus of the counselling process. Counselling helps the students to understand their self so that they come to know about their needs and interests.
- Determine the Potential: There are various students who have clear thoughts about what they want to become, whereas, on the other hand, there are various others who are either in dilemma or have no idea about their career preferences. Career counsellors conduct the regular aptitude tests and counselling sessions which can help students in finding out the right career options and the fields in which they show interest. On the basis of these counselling results, students can make the right selection regarding in which course they want to enrol in order to accomplish their career goals.
- Clear the Doubts: Despite having a clear thought of what students want to achieve in their life, some students do not know the career path they need to follow to have the requisite academic qualification to join a particular course. Career counselling can help students clear these doubts by giving them a clear cut view of what they can expect from various educational courses. Some students might also have several doubts about certain fields. Career counselling also helps students to overcome these doubts by knowing the true facts.
- Support and Motivation: A career counsellor also provides essential support and boosts the morale of a student by understanding the kind of requirements and nature of the candidate because building the motivational level of a student is necessary for long-term success. This aids in improving the overall performance of a student. In addition, career counselling also teaches how to expand your social network which further enhances emotional support.
- Various Career Opportunities: Career Counselors are well aware of the jobs in the market and the skills that are required for specific fields. For instance, there are many rewarding fields such as bartending, ethical hacking, astrophysics, etc. that are still un-tapped and many people are not aware of these streams. There are also other careers such as Aviation and Defense, about which you may not know how to get into them. Hence, with the help of their experience and knowledge, a career counsellor helps you explore and discover various career opportunities for career selection and growth.
- In Case of Loss of Job: A career expert or other advisor can help recently unemployed customers to adapt to practical issues like applying for unemployment benefits and taking care of health insurance etc. In fact, he or she can enable the customer to start with the job searching process. They can likewise get motivation and guidance from experts and, through support groups, from other people who are in a similar circumstance. They prove to be useful from both a mental and technical perspective.
- Clarity on Future Goals: Every student has set a goal to achieve in his life. There are various question roaming in the mind of students like what ambitions or targets do you have? Where do you see yourself five years from now? The best aspect of career counselling is that it is objective and strategic. A clear picture of your goal can be created informing you about where you will head and what obstacles you will face on this journey. After having a serious discussion with the counsellor, you should be confident of the fact that the future you are heading for is fun-filled and something that you will be able to stick on to for long.
- Ideal Courses: These professionals provide you with the best information about the ideal colleges and courses in India as well as overseas. If you want to stay in India and study over here then you might have some knowledge about the future aspects of the courses which you want to do. But if you want to go overseas for studies and for career growth, you might not have all the information related to that country’s market. You do not know whether the future for that field is growing or diminishing. In this case, career advice from experts is the best way to understand the prospects of an option in different countries.
- Aim Leads to Success: A counsellor can help the students to choose the right aim and help them with the process of achieving it. Furthermore, an experienced counsellor can help them with a well-planned track to reach the goal. A step by step career map of reaching the goal in a realistic manner helps the students to achieve their desired career faster. With right goal setting, a person can attend career success over a very short time period.
However, candidates who are willing to take the career counselling should be aware of the consequences if they choose the wrong consultant because it is related to your future and a single wrong step will be harmful to your coming life. Your career consultant or counsellor should be experienced so that he/she serves you in a better way. After consulting with your counsellor, do homework on the suggestion provided by the consultant. Check over the internet, books and magazines about the course and college which you are going to choose. Nowadays, various online career websites are available on the internet, on which you can check anything related to your career queries.
Career counselling is to get the necessary guidance from a qualified professional that would help the student in making the right choice regarding his career. Career counsellors should try and use the best elements from various approaches in their work. Their allegiance should, ultimately, be to find the best ways to be useful to clients. So, you should consult with them before taking any career-related step.