Need and Importance of Career Counselling

Need and Importance of Career Counselling

(Written by: Vani Gupta)

In a country like India where job opportunities are scarce and the lifestyle is stressful, career counselling is the need of the hour. Earlier most of the students had no knowledge about the various career opportunities and were more than happy to be yet another sheep in the herd. However, times have changed and students actually want to follow their ambitions rather than just earn money as their end goal. Money is not what defines a successful man; it is also about one’s skills and abilities. Apart from the pressure of competition, disruptive technologies in the information age and highly volatile job market, deciding a lifelong career choice is quite challenging for both students and their parents.

Career counselling is the process of understanding and accessing an individual’s concerns, interests, abilities and skills in order to guide them towards the right career path. The process guides a candidate in understanding and pursuing the right career options as per their interests. It helps us get insights about ourselves, our career and what we can do to improve it.

Nowadays many people are not aware of the multitude of career paths available, also the time at which students are expected to take such a big decision calls for guidance for better results. Many times students pick a career just because of a fancy name or because of peer pressure and later on realise that they were not actually interested to do this kind of work in the first place. To avoid such circumstances one should seek career guidance which although is still not very prevalent but is quite essential.

Career guidance is not just a onetime thing or a process that should be taken up at a particular stage in life, people who want to change their domain of work can also seek help. Sometimes people settle into a job because of financial perks or just because they were dragged into it due to lack of information sources, career counsellors can actually help such people to gain insights about the field that they’re passionate about and can even help them analyse if they are cut out for that job or not. Career counselling lays down a proper track for a student which is most suitable for him/her based on their test results. Proper evaluation and guidance can make a student confident about their choices. It reduces the stress regarding the future and provides clarity. Career counsellors also provide large amount of information to their clients based on their requirements and sensitize them for making the best possible decision.

Psychometric testing is a career counsellor’s basic tool to obtain the information about a student’s behaviour, strengths, emotional intelligence and skills. It is a scientific and standardized test to identify the attitude of a person. It helps the counsellors to provide proper guidance to the students and assist them in making the right choice. According to many studies carried out lately it was observed that these psychometric tests were quite accurate and those who entered the jobs in line with recommendations were more satisfied with their lives and had more stable jobs than those in jobs differing from the recommendations.

In India career counselling is yet to become the most important profession before choosing a career. Although, people are getting aware about it still there is a shortage in the availability of the counsellors. Due to internet and technology the awareness has increased to some extent.  Online career counselling is definitely a convenient way to get counselling done at the comfort of your home.

  A Career Counselor is professionally trained who could identify and understand the hidden potential within a student to analyze their entire personality, aptitude, IQ , time, resources, competition, and various other parameters to finally provide the best career option that is available to help the student to achieve success in life and always feel happy about the career option that will spread happiness and peace all around which would be way more better than ruining your life for just money and nothing else.