by ProTeen

What is Career Counselling?

What is Career Counselling?

Imagine the very first explorers setting out on daunting voyages to the new and previously unknown world. Without any access to crucial tools to help them cope, or any knowledge of what they might come across, and no equipment vital to bolster their survival. To simply walk blindly and completely unprepared into a vast, expansive void of a world. Now imagine a young student approaching the modern career world, standing on the edge of a similar precipice. With all the variables, possibilities, and choices that exist regarding a career, a difficult decision veers towards the impossible.

Fortunately, today we benefit from the expertise of people in the form of career counselling. The simplest explanation is that career counselling brings together professionals with in-depth knowledge and know-how of the various careers, and couples it with guiding individuals by helping them understand their selves and their surroundings to eventually make a well-informed career choice. Professionals in this field are known as career counsellors, who highlight the path needed for career development with effective career counselling.

The first steps can be the hardest

Currently, the career counselling landscape falls woefully short when compared to our population — India needs 1.4 million career counsellors to achieve the standard student-to-counsellor ratio of 250:1 as prescribed by the International School Counsellors Associations (ISCA). The massive shortage in career counselling for students is highlighted by the fact that almost 93% of students within the age group of 14 to 21 knew of only seven career options from the 2000+ careers available in the market. Students fresh out of school are unaware of the career world that awaits them in the future. Even college students about to graduate lack the knowledge of the sheer number of career options, traditional and new age, currently available in the career market.

Before the introduction of career counselling for students, career decisions were viewed as relatively simple. Young students looking to build their futures were presented with a familiar set of careers that were seen as lucrative — engineers, doctors — and they chose a career based on what their closest set of influencers (parents, family etc) thought their future should be. Even students in schools are influenced from an early age to pick a specific stream to pursue a lucrative career. This traditional method, however, has since been disrupted with the emergence of the digital revolution and unconventional thinking due to changing lifestyles. Today, students have a vast array of options for both academic and career choices. Thus, the information needed in the modern world to decide a student’s career is vast, variable and can seem daunting.  For this very reason, effective career counselling plays a crucial role in shaping the future of young children. Career counselling specialises in amassing all the information relevant to making a career decision, streamlining, and structuring it – to then present it to students in an easy, accessible manner to help develop their career journey.

 

Making the right choices are crucial

In today’s `Man eat Man’ world, razor-sharp decision-making is a prerequisite, and an informed decision always leads to progress. At present, only one out of 10 students receive career counselling in India. Additionally, 93% of Indian schools do not offer career counselling, leaving students unprepared to face and deal with the modern career world. With new careers emerging in recent years, coupled with most careers adapting to the digital domain, the modern career world is constantly evolving and adding to the ever-changing nature of our corporate environments. Students today need a dynamic solution to keep up with the 21st-century career landscape and guide them to making the right decisions.

Traditional career counselling broadly identifies where an individual’s potential lies through psychometric assessments. Advancements like data-oriented career counselling, gamification, and career demos have reshaped new-age digital career guidance for the 21st-century, replacing the traditional counselling approach. Career counselling aims to minimise the trial-and-error nature of job hunting and ensures that students are on the right path to being career-ready from an early age. Career counselling tackles the dynamic career landscape by providing a student with a thorough understanding of the fundamentals, i.e., their likes, interests, aptitude, intelligence, and personality. An in-depth awareness of these fundamental aspects is crucial in terms of career development. Having proper knowledge of what they like and what they are inherently good at helps identify a direction for an academic or career choice early in the process. This is paired with a thorough understanding of their personality which influences the careers they might fit in and the different areas they possess “intelligence” in. Through career counselling, all these factors are identified and put together, they form the core of an individual’s choices, from picking the right stream to picking a career option that aligns with their outlook and interests.

Know yourself with ProTeen’s career counselling

Career doubts and confusions are common amongst students in schools and colleges. It is crucial to address these career doubts before starting one’s career journey in earnest. To be able to provide effective career counselling, it is essential to understand a student’s story. It is important to know a student’s background, inspirations, role models, beliefs, etc. as these real-life external factors have a strong influence on a student’s persona.

Modern career counselling has evolved due to the digital revolution and has been reimagined for the 21st-century career world. ProTeen offers new-age career counselling by leveraging cutting-edge technology and AI advancements. By utilising the best mix of Science and AI combined with leading research from developmental psychology, ProTeen sets the industry-leading standard for career counselling and career guidance.

ProTeen’s unique and powerful 3D Awareness Engine forms the core of its new-age career counselling and is designed to provide a scientific, holistic, and experiential approach to making smart career decisions in the 21st century. This 3-dimensional awareness is achieved by understanding:

  • Awareness of Self: ProTeen’s comprehensive psychometric assessment results, deep dives into an individual’s capabilities, interests, multiple intelligences, and personality traits, providing an awareness of oneself.
  • Awareness of the Career LandscapeWith 600+ careers in our vast libraries, students will have wider visibility into the industry landscape and includes the most recent and trending new-age career options. Finally, you can make a well-informed choice.
  • Awareness of the Right Fit: ProTeen automatically identifies the right set of careers for a student from an expansive career landscape and based on personalised situations of an individual’s psychometric assessment.

Thus, with effective career counselling, students can approach the right choice at the right time, which is crucial in terms of a good career path. To achieve this goal, the science and research employed and used are the best that the industry has to offer and encompasses the following:

Cognitive Science & Research

  • Interest Analysis: Dr. Holland’s Occupational Theme guides students in understanding their area of interest that can reveal more about who they are, what suits them, and provide information necessary for making the right career choice.
  • Personality Test: The OCEAN model analyses personality, temperament, and behavioural patterns that individuals exhibit across various situations.
  • Multiple Intelligences: Dr. Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences covers different learning abilities. The hypothesis describes various methods by which students learn and absorb information.
  • Aptitude Test: This proprietary aptitude test is designed to measure cognitive abilities and competencies to predict an individual’s future performance.

Career counselling provides a roadmap to the next steps

With an average career making up close to 40 years of an adult’s life, it is absolutely crucial to make the right career decisions from the very first steps. A long and fruitful career that an individual enjoys and aligns with their preferences, lays the foundation for a happy personal and professional life. Career counselling at its core is a student-centric solution that helps dispel career myths, doubts, and worries. While the benefits of career counselling for students are numerous, a close look at some of the biggest advantages should make a compelling case for the widespread acceptance and implementation of career counselling nationwide.

So, how exactly does career counselling benefit students on the approaching the start of making career decisions?

  • Provides clarity : Students in school are surrounded by other kids aspiring to a variety of careers. Doctors, singers, actors, pilots, cricketers, the world seems much simpler at that age. Young kids also have different role models and look up to many different people. In today’s world, social media influence is rampant and a huge factor in what students are exposed to and thereby, believe. It is precisely for these reasons that career counselling for students is so important. Career counselling can provide answers to all the doubts they carry and even clear up the realities of a career from a myth.
  • A direction to the right career path : With comprehensive psychometric assessments, students are made aware of their real strengths, interests, aptitude. Coupled with clarity on aspects of their personality and natural intelligences, career counselling is able to provide students with a clear picture of what their potential is and provide a detailed roadmap to careers that are best suited for them.
  • No human bias : One of the biggest advantages of modern digital career counselling is the adoption of technology in the career counselling process. Thanks to digital platforms leveraging a fusion of technology and AI advancements, students aren’t subjected to personal biases. This allows students to make unbiased, well-informed career decisions purely based on their actual strengths and capabilities.
  • Comprehensive career exploration : Most students are only aware of a limited number of careers. The modern career landscape has evolved in recent years with many new-age careers emerging. Today, unconventional or unorthodox careers are also on the rise, with alternative careers like green jobs and socially interactive careers in greater demand. With over 2000+ careers existing, career libraries coupled with digital career counselling allows students to explore careers from their homes, thereby enabling better career awareness.
  • Career Demos : A student today can choose to preview a career before choosing a profession, all from the comfort of their homes. Instead of forcing students to experience internships in the real world, career demos breaks the norms by using simulations of real 21st-century careers and roleplays. Career demos provide answers to questions such as “What does this career entail?”, “What would a typical workday look like?”, and “What will my career progression be?”. By offering students an immersive, textured, and rich virtual experience, the modern career counselling process is revolutionised to provide students with a smoother, engaging experience.
  • Personalized reports : With AI algorithms and machine learning, personalized reports are now possible allowing students to map skill sets, personalities, and capabilities to the various careers available, enabling them to see their ideal career fit long before approaching a career decision. This saves them the frustration of making bad choices and saves time by preventing mistakes.
  • Get the best help possible : While career counselling was always a necessity in India, the digitisation and the spread of technology has dissolved geographical boundaries, leading to even smaller cities and towns having access to better career opportunities. This further amplifies the crucial need for effective career counselling in the country. To highlight the importance of career awareness and to enable career readiness in students across the country, digital career counselling plays a vital and fundamental role.

Modern career counselling is polished and streamlined as per the highest standards to benefit students. From identifying your strengths and interests to making the right career choices and providing a concrete career path, career counselling covers every step of the way. An ideal start to a long career journey ensures students are in for a smooth and stable right and career counselling is the first step to enabling a better future for the students of the country.