INTRODUCTION
Career discussions are part of every household. The process begins as early as with the arrival of your first report card, or if your parents are very ambitious, they pray your first word to be the career they see fit for you. Pressure even before you even take your first steps. Very daunting.
Choosing a career is often a tough decision to take, especially if you are torn between two of your very best choices. This is where a ‘career guide’ comes in. They ask a set of selected questions at the beginning of your interaction with them and follow them up with queries based on your choice or choices.
JOB AS A CAREER GUIDE
If we take a closer look at the job as a career guide, how do you define a person who does a job of finding jobs for others? How do you give the reigns of your life to some random person to decide what you should and should not do?
A career guide is a group of people (usually more than one person) who has not formed opinions on a whim but have studied and experienced numerous cases of successes and failures.
Being honest with your career guide goes a long way. They can fully assess your strengths and weaknesses and move forward with your counseling. This will keep you safe from making doubt-induced and half-hearted decisions.
The guidance is there to show the path to you and remove any unnecessary obstacles from your way, not to decide for you. So knowing yourself first and then approaching a career guide is the best order of things to go about.
USUAL STAGES OF A CAREER GUIDE COUNSELLING
The most common points of time when a career guide is approached are three. They are –
After your 10th grade or secondary school results
After your 12th grade results(or college in some countries)
After you have finished your Undergrad degree (or university in some countries)
These turning points of life shape your future. Therefore, be careful in selecting even the trivial of choices. Be patient. Be aware. Look at all of your options, and do not be hasty.
The career guide’s job is to consider your academic and co-curricular performance, interests, hobbies, and interested profession and its value in the world as of that moment and your grades. They also look for practical knowledge and experience (if any).
The three categories show different levels on an assessment bar graph. So, the points to be noted for giving a verdict may vary depending on the student’s type.
UNUSUAL STAGES OF A CAREER GUIDE COUNSELLING
Sometimes, due to unforeseen circumstances, people have to discontinue their studies or jobs. It could be moving to a new place, a death in the family, having a baby, or getting married (especially in the case of women)
So for these unconventional situations, a different method of career guidance is adapted. This considers your qualification, previous job standing, and salary, number of years of experience, the reason for dis-continuation, and re-continuation.
Already working once raises your standards quite a bit, and the experiences change your views and perception of certain things. They also include religion, men to women ratio of workers, transport, and the level of safety they will be working in.
Based on the above, the career guide will help you make the right choice for picking up right where you left off and not having the inhibition of being held back or missing out on a fragment of the journey.
BEST CAREER BOOKS – 2021
Books, a human’s best friend, are the best form of gaining knowledge. They don’t talk back, discourage or judge you. Developing the habit of reading is beneficial for developing your career and keeping yourself up-to-date with the latest developments in the world.
They may even be related to your choice of career or maybe interrelated indirectly to your job. Keeping track of them helps your career to move forward and fast-forward to promotions.
Some of the best books of 2021 recommended for career-counseling are given below —
Designing Your Life – Bill Burnett and Dave Evans – about life in general
Do What You Are – Paul D. Tieger, Barbara Barron, and Kelly Tieger – for personality understanding
Presence – Amy Cuddy – for learning soft skills
So Good They Can’t Ignore You – Cal Newport – on how to be unique
What Colour Is Your Parachute? – Richard N. Bolles – for mid-career changes and job searches
The Third Door – Alex Banayan – for interviews
How To Win Friends And Influence People – Dale Carnegie – classic
The Confidence Code – Katty Kay and Claire Shipman – for women
CONCLUSION
In olden times, newspapers followed by word of mouth or lastly, relations with someone already working in a firm were the only routes for finding a job. Unlike today, where there are several websites with more options you can count on, this was not the case back then.
The advent of the internet has gifted us with blessings which we often take for granted. It has helped us in more ways than one, notably mentioned to be searching for jobs.
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