Career Guidance
Why employment guidance is important for your professional career?
Vocational guidance responds to two main needs. On the one hand, the need for self-knowledge of the job seeker, with the aim of defining their profile according to their skills and concerns and, on the other hand, the evaluation of the work environment. This second part is essential, since it is what determines how the profile fits in the real world.
With this in mind, we will now break down why career guidance is important when looking for or redirecting your professional career.
1. It allows you to get to know yourself better
The qualities of each person determine in which positions they will be able to develop their maximum potential. Therefore, it is crucial that you know Yourself or yourself to make sure that the path you choose really suits all aspects of your life and your way of being.
However, it is not only a question of inquiring into individual professional interests or skills, but of delving further. Through psycho-pedagogical tests, it is intended to reveal possibilities that may not even be obvious to the person concerned.
A common mistake is to think that there is only one career path. However, going through a professional orientation process can be the key that opens a world of new possibilities that you would not have considered otherwise. But, for that to be possible, it is essential to analyze your strengths, abilities, passions and personality, as well as your personal goals.
Once all these factors have been elucidated, the vocational counselor fits them together like pieces of a puzzle with different employment possibilities. In other words, her job is to investigate the types of work that best suit your character, preferences, priorities, and goals.
So far, these are the most obvious features and benefits of going through a career counseling process. However, to really give you a competitive advantage when looking for a job, career counseling must go much further.
A good professional orientation is not limited to displaying a list of professions that fit certain types of personalities, tastes and qualities. It is also necessary to take into account the socioeconomic reality and the labor market that surrounds you to really make an informed decision about your future work.
Thus, among the conjectural elements that must be considered are the economic cost that must be assumed to pursue certain professional careers, as well as the total number of professionals currently practicing each potential profession, the real offer of jobs in the sector that could be considered ideal according to your personality, the possibility of geographical mobility or the economic remuneration that can be expected from each option, among others.
During the intense process of personal analysis that takes place during a job orientation, not only are your obvious and hidden talents or interests identified, but you also have the opportunity to reflect on your areas of improvement.
It is usually relatively easy to recognize what your passions and abilities are, but it is often more complex to face our shortcomings or weaknesses. Therefore, an effective career guidance should not focus exclusively on what you have, but also on what you lack to reach your full potential.
Sometimes, our professional objectives do not quite adapt to what we can offer in the work environment. For this reason, it is important that someone help us fill in the curricular or attitudinal gaps to achieve our goals.
Once you have identified your strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opportunities in your work environment, it is time to establish a specific plan so that all that self-knowledge and analysis does not remain merely theoretical. It is a multidimensional process that seeks:
Find ways to enhance your talents and enhance the aspects of your personality that are positive for the position of your dreams;
Implement ways to complement your skills or acquire new skills in line with your employment goals,
Being able to individually identify new paths in the future according to your interests and abilities;
Compensate or solve the deficiencies that you may have both on a personal and professional level so that your profile is even more adapted to the positions for which you wish to apply;
Apply all of the above to the changing reality of the labor market and your socioeconomic environment.
Such an experience provides reflective personal self-awareness and an awareness of the work reality around you, as well as the tools to adjust both. This combination of introspection and pragmatism will not only be useful when it comes to discerning which path to choose for your professional future, but tangentially it will gift you with skills such as self-criticism, self-improvement, flexibility and open-mindedness, which They are very valuable in certain professions.
What is not intended with professional guidance?
Up to this point, we have exposed in a global way what vocational guidance is, what are the different elements that compose it and the advantages of all this. However, there are still many misconceptions about what to expect from a career guidance service.
Career guidance is not a superficial interview after which all doubts about your future job will be answered. It is not a magic formula that will make your ideal job appear or that will transform you into the person you need to be to be immediately hired at the company you have always wanted to be a part of. Career guidance is a first step in finding the path that best suits your needs, skills and concerns, while helping you identify how to improve to maximize your opportunities and emphasize your potential.
In general terms, therefore, it should not be expected that the counselor or the professional counselor offer a unique and immovable option to each person. Not even that it breaks down the pros and cons of opting for one path or another from among the possibilities that it puts on the table. Its function is to guide the job seeker to analyze and make the most appropriate decisions for the situation and her way of being.
In summary, the job orientation sessions aim to open your eyes as to who you are, what you are looking for and what you can opt for in a precise, exhaustive and realistic way, while providing you with the necessary tools to consolidate yourself as the candidate. Ideal for the position you want to get.
