Education and career plays a
pivotal role in journey of ones life from birth till death. And if their
education best fit in with cognitive abilities and resides at strengths they
become one of the successful people in the world. The rationale behind their
success is a perfect match in their abilities (interest) and their career
choice. So every person should know their strengths and weakness and on playing
their strengths they can overcome their weaknesses and will hit the
opportunities with right momentum at the right time. This is somewhat we call
career counseling as counseling is to provide direction for the course of action
and if I say, right direction for career decision than it is called career
counseling. Career counselors assist on issues like career exploration, personal
career preferences, change in career, and all related issues to attain their
career goals. It is a widely used concept in many of the developed countries,
they have counseling facilities to guide students and professionals but
unfortunately it is not very well recognized concept in Pakistan, one of the
reason is many prevailing factors in Pakistan like political unrest inflation
and law and order situation doesn’t allow people to focus of these kinds of
issues and also lack of awareness, but still there are few universities who
offers counseling to their students, but it should be available as facility for
all.
I divide the counseling in two major folds one is at turning point of your
educational career when you choose some specific subjects for your future career
and second is your professional career in which you choose your career as per
your acquired expertise.
It’s said that typically when people come for career counseling they know
exactly what they want to get out of the process, but are unsure about how it
will work (galassi, Crace, martin, James and Wallace, 1992) It is some what true
but according to my perception is varies from nation to nation as they are
talking about the people who have sound knowledge about education and career and
they just want direction but if you particularly talk about Pakistan where
literacy rate is so low that people are not enough equipped with education how
they can be self guided about the career direction and its dilemma of our
country that even many educated people don’t think about this critical
issue………many parents forces their children to choose the field they decided for
them and, if not, than many time impliedly our cultures direct students to
choose some specific subject. It is generally perceived that student who study
science is good and intelligent as I have been told by one of my teacher about
his experience regarding that, once he was in the interview panel and there was
one of the female candidate performed excellently in interview but her academics
was not good as compare to many other interviewer there and on inquiry she told
that she choose business field in masters by her own choice and before that she
was forced to study science subjects by her father so results in poor academic
record. This is only one of the examples but there are hundreds of cases around
us facing this problem. Many of the students waste their golden time period in
just passing out burden of studies without realizing the fact that how we are
worthless without education.
As it is said by William Shakespeare “I wasted time, and now doth time waste
me.”
So I believe that students at middle or higher level should be provided with the
guidance about career identification and selection of field of specialization
within that career by connecting their resources so they got maximum output out
of it and their field of interest by taking their vocational test, cognitive
ability test, personality assessment so they will be guided properly for a
bright future of individuals and nations and with the freedom to choose their
field but with the proper guidance.
After completion of required academics, professional counseling is next step it
is not a one time decision it is an ongoing process you might change your
profession many times or can stick to one, it’s not about the field which is
better to choose as all work are valuable and add to the well being of society
its your perception and interest which led you toward a specific field……in
making decisions about kind of work to pursue, it is important to integrate
self-awareness with labor market operation to arrive at best fit for the person.
In many organizations you are required to have experience of job the rationale
is that the experienced personal are able to perform job wisely and concisely
and the other aspect is they have practical exposure and decided the field of
their interest to work in, so good results are expected from them. As a person
who is well matched with the job is likely to be more motivated and successful
than others who are poorly suited as said by William Shakespeare choose the work
you love, you will never have to work a single day in your life.
One basic problem is that individuals should be provided with the proper
assistance with job searching strategies such as writing resume and cover
letter, learning interview skills, knowing where to look for jobs, that are
advertise as well as jobs that are not advertised, as job searching strategies
is one of the basic task for starting a career and if you are not well equipped
with this you will be losing good opportunities.
To become master of one is better than jack of all and if you choose area of
your interest you will be having command over it and will be highly accepted by
market and will be paid as per your expertise so whatever you are, be a good one
and don’t let failure prevent career growth.
There is great need of counseling for our students and our professionals as both
are the asset of our nation and if we will under utilize our asset we will not
be getting maximum output. For this parents, family, friends and environment is
a big informal source of guidance and they should keep them aware of the
educational pattern and interests of individual by well adjusting the resources
and environmental opportunities and teachers should also be good source of
information for students along with it counselors guide should be provided to
the individuals to decide about the future as field selection is most crucial
decision of one’s life and wrong decision will lead to disastrous results as
weak base will never build a strong building.
But it is not as simple as it appears on its face as concept of counseling in
Pakistan is minimal and no proper work is done for it and lack of resources and
inflexibility of environment are also some contaminating factors, its need of
time to focus on this issues as world is becoming global village and now we are
not only competing within Pakistan but all over world so we should be best in
what we are being representative of our country…….and also its about pride of
Pakistan.
My approach to write this article is to make people aware of the fact that there
Is need to be well guided and if we are not supported by our government we all
should come up and form a platform to guide our upcoming generation as it is
also our duty towards nation. I am also a student of BBA and always remain in
urge to indulge myself in any creative activity to help my nation but never
found any source for it hope our upcoming generation will not face this problem
and hoping and praying for my nation to be at the top.