In the past post of this series on the Benefits of Career Counseling we talked about testing to aid in decision making, now we are going to talk about making career choices.
The most important thing to remember is that regardless of your life stage, it can be perfectly normal to be undecided about your career choice. It is an extremely important decision. The more undecided you are in the beginning of your career, the more chances you will give yourself to explore the many options that are open to you. If you are later in your career, you may not have known you had choices when you started out. In either case, the fact is that the average job seeker will make at least three career transitions and four to seven job changes throughout his or her life! Nothing is written in stone. All we really have to take with us and to give to another employer, or to give to ourselves if we are entrepreneurs, is our skills and abilities.
In the past, when a person started a job after high school or college, he or she was “married” to the company. Now they are only living together! The company does not promise an employee a job from “cradle to crave.” With constant restructuring, takeovers, downsizing, and mergers, people do not find security from their companies any more. We find our security, safety, and self-esteem from knowing and marketing our own set of competencies. A career counselor can help you sort out what those competencies are by helping you to consider and investigate these questions:
What is that comes naturally to you? What did you fantasize about becoming as you were growing up? What subjects were you good at while attending school? What do you feel passionate about? What are your hobbies and avocations? What have people encouraged you about or complimented you on? You may very well know what you don’t like, and may even go to any lengths to avoid working in those areas. It is what you do like that is sometimes buried deep because of early conditioning such as parental and societal pressures. Actually, you can conceptualize your “perfect” job as a point in the middle of three intersecting circles. The three circles are 1) your abilities and skills 2) your interests 3) the local and global marketplace. Your career counselor will assist you in understanding fully how these three circles intersect with your unique self.
In the next segment we will talk about how career seekers can get information and education on different opportunities.
BBCS – Baskin Career Counseling offers Career Counseling Services, New Jersey (NJ) and Nationwide for individual and Corporate Clients/Outplacement and Career Coaching . If you are looking for resume writers in the NJ area or anywhere in the USA, we are also pleased to assist you with these professional services as well. Please visit our main site at www.baskincareer.com.