CAREER GUIDE - How to Plan your Career

As soon as a young child comes out of school he is confronted with the problem of choosing which is the most appropriate stream of studies for him to study further i.e. Humanities, Non-Medical, Medical, Commerce, Arts, Agriculture, Vocational trades etc. This decision will set limit for his future choice of career. Leaving aside some common overlapping fields of occupations he is left with the option to make a choice of his career from the fields of occupations covered under that stream of education only. Therefore, such choice of stream must be right one so that he will not have to regret for a wrong choice later on. Thus, this exercise of choice has assumed very great significance in his life.

What is Career Planning ?

Career planning is a process of deciding your ideal and an appropriate career based upon your course of studies, which rightly commensurate with your basic aptitudes, work preferences; Need to Achieve (n Ach), personality traits and work style based on your acquired skills, self confidence, attitudes, adjustment level and emotional intelligence levels etc.

What does Career Planning Process Constitute?

1 . The first step in career planning is to gain a better understanding of your basic aptitudes, intrinsic interests (work prefereances) , n ‘ach (need achievement), personality and its traits, self confidence, adjustment status and psychological hurdles affecting careers. You will benefit by using testing batteries of these factors. So apply different types of Career Inventories, also known as Tests to assist you.

• Find out your career related aptitudes.
• Sort out matching fields of course of future studies, which commensurate with your aptitudes.
• On the basis of your aptitudes’ results discover occupations that match your courses of studies and other competencies.
• Try to know how you will adjust:-
  
  to people working in such careers;
  
  i. related circumstances and demands of your aptitudes to execute it;
  
  ii.work preferences in such occupation;
  
  iii.personality traits which facilitate in such occupation;
  
  iv.other competencies needed in your work environments;
  
  v.and visualize whether these adjustments will result in ‘stresses or satisfaction’.
• Aptitudes:
  
  Your aptitudes are pointer to your symptomatic future performances. They determine the attainment levels as well as types of activities you are capable of doing. The modern research studies have established that there are nine independent basic aptitudes which are needed in execution of every occupation. Of course, every occupation requires different levels of these nine aptitudes. Their determination is finalized through multiple cut off technique. Researches have also determined the levels of aptitudes needed for almost every occupation. Career Counsellors have to find out the levels of these aptitudes of the individuals and match them with those of various occupations to find most suitable careers for them. Out of which they can exercise their final choices keeping in mind their individual preferences as well as market trends concerning such career. The nine basic aptitudes which are tested on General Aptitude Testing Battery are Intelligence coded as ‘G’, Verbal Aptitude coded as ‘V’, Numerical Aptitude coded as ‘N’, Spatial Aptitude coded as ‘S’, Form Perception coded as ’P’, Clerical Perception coded as ‘P’, Motor Co-Ordination coded as ‘K’, Finger Dexterity coded as ‘F’ and Manual Dexterity coded as ‘M’. Need to Achieve (n ‘Ach) contribution in career development is very paramount. In its measurement the following three aspects are covered using projective techniques: