08/11/2016
IMPORTANCE OF CHOOSING RIGHT CAREER
It is said that if you love what you do, you never have to work a day in your life. Not all of us are lucky enough to be working in jobs that we really enjoy. When generation Y was growing up in India, the more accepted and therefore preferred education streams were medicine and engineering. Not much attention was given to where the interest or the competence of the individual lay. As the Indian economy and the job market in the country began to open up, parents and their wards became aware of a more diverse set of career choices. Role models in sports and other off beat careers began to emerge. Movies such as Aamir Khan’s 3 Idiots helped expose an entire generation of parents and students to the perils of forcing the wrong career choice onto children.
More choices always come with more questions and more confusion. A survey of class 10 students revealed that a large number were not sure what careers they would like to choose, yet they are at a critical juncture where they need to choose which subjects to keep, in class 11 and which ones to give up. The wrong choice is causing organizations to lose millions of dollars, every year, in attrition, re -training and low morale costs. But the costs of choosing the wrong career are not limited to companies alone, young professionals go through de motivation and even depression. How can we help young students identify the right career path during high school?
Deciding on a career: Deciding a career boils down to assessing 3 primary requirements:
Understanding ones interests
Determining financial feasibility
Gauging future prospects
A lot of schools are introducing personality and SWOT analysis early in their curriculum. A student’s interests, strengths and personality play a big part in determining which careers will provide them with the most personal satisfaction. There are many free resources available help high school students figure out which careers they’re best suited for. These online career assessment websites give students the opportunity to answer questions about themselves and their interests, and then get immediate feedback about the careers that best fit their personality.
Career counseling is also a useful tool in choosing a career. Career Counseling is not a one day event; rather it is a process which occurs over time, which can help a student feel confident they have explored their options and made the most appropriate choice. The earlier the process of Career Counseling is begun, the more thorough and effective the search process can be for the student. The process of Career Counseling is an active one, which can help assure a student will have chosen a major from the wide range of existing possibilities. The ultimate aim is for a student finds the major which is consistent with one’s values, interests, skills, and abilities, through individualized interpretation of career interest inventories.
Internships can teach students more about what they do and what they don’t want to do. No one’s career path is a straight line. Everyone starts off with a vision of their ideal job, but this vision is really just a guess based purely on hypotheticals. A funny thing often happens when someone starts working at their ideal job, they realize it’s not so ideal for them after all. Internships are a unique opportunity to test drive different positions to see which ride students enjoy most. Students should utilize their summer holidays to intern in different roles and organizations to see which roles excite them and could financially sustain them, through their careers.
Pitfalls for students to avoid when deciding on a career:
Choosing the same career as that of your parents or one that they want you to choose: Granted that parents always want your best. That however does not mean that the career that worked best for them, will also work for you. The economy has changed, business has changed, options have increased, choosing a career should be a personal choice. One that plays to your strengths and to your interests.
Choosing the first job that you get: Day one during campus placements are a big deal for students, often day one companies are the most coveted on campus. Just because they work for the majority of the students, does not mean that the companies work for you too. Along with the role being offered, it is important to consider whether or not the culture of the firm fits in with your personal values.
Choosing a job that has the best title: The younger we are, the more lured we are by big titles, students want to be vice presidents as soon as they start working. Most organizations are however moving to flatter structures, where a manager would have more than 15 years of experience and one would not expect to make a vice president before 20 years. On the other, even if you do get the title of a vice president, you will probably still be doing entry level work that is suitable for your experience levels.
Choosing a job based on compensation: This one is probably the toughest pitfall to avoid. The key is to remember that if the role that you are choosing, does not interest you, or does not play to your strengths, you will likely not do well in it. That will lead to getting branded as a non-performer, very early in your career. That is not a tag that you want or one that you can get out of, very easily. You may also find yourself bound by ‘golden handcuffs”, where your high salary does not permit you to take another lower paying job, even though you may realize that the lower paying job is better for you.
Finally, a word of caution. It is not enough to just choose the right career. Making the right career work for you, takes effort. A lot of us believe that once we land the dream job, we can take it easy. Making a true success of your career takes continuous learning. Research shows that interns that took initiative and made the effort to learn more about their jobs and for the tasks at hand, performed better on their jobs than those that came in from better educational institutions or fit the role’s education and competency and experience requirements.
