By Rehman Asif

rehmanaseef@yahooo.com

Career counseling is a service that guides to make important career choices. It is sometimes called career coaching or career development. Such guidance services can help to identify and stay focused on career goals and escorts to take the desirablesteps to meet those goals. It can benefit almost anyone. Whether you are at the earlier stages of choosing a career, re-entering into the workforce after spending time, or recovering from a layoff, career counseling can help you to navigate through these career choices. It can even be beneficial if you are currently employed. It makes you insightful towards career counseling and to perform in a better way at work place.

In developing countries like Pakistan, this concept is ambiguous being not a part of prevailing practices. It is an existing phenomenon of our society that parents are very much concerned and focused about the educational choices of their children without realizing the inclination and tendencies in their children regarding choice of a career. Kids are under pressure to score high; so the game is of numbers. Without matching the aptitude, skills and interests of the individuals, parents are prone to make their kids a machine to produce numbers. In fact career counseling does not exist in Pakistan in its true sense. Most of the students do not get any counseling at any level of their academic life about their career path. It is observed that kids choose their career under the influence of their family members bearing a tough competition which finally ended on the choices to become engineer and doctor haphazardly.

Selection of the right career is one of the most important and life changing decision in a student’s life. If it is not taken serious enough, it may result in a life time regret, irritation and restlessness. But proper guidance by a professional educational advisor at this stage leads a student to the road to success with the satisfaction of mind and soul.

A serious attitude and considerationis required in the area of career counseling specifically in educational institutes of Pakistan. Students are not receiving any career counseling at any level in their academic life. Most of people choose their careers without understanding their personal goals and interests in life. People take career counseling as guiding a student or a person about the right career path, after analyzing their skills and interest. So, need analysis is the core area of career counseling. This guidance must be given by someone who is specialized in psychology and science of career counseling. Most of the people are not guided or counseled about their career selection. A few are guided by their parents, immediate family members or in a fewcases their teachers. All of this guidance is done informally and in an unsystematic way.

There is no formal system of career counseling available at either level of the education i.e. school level, college level and the university level. Mostly, career counseling is available at homes by a mother or a father. There are some offices established at university level for career counseling, but in reality they are not fulfilling the purpose due to unqualified professionals and are not fully operational. These offices are working for the placement of their own students which is completely different from career counseling. A proper career counseling system must be establishedin Pakistan provided atall levels, where a counselor ought to be available to guide the students and groom them professionally. As I earlier said that a career counselor must be a person having knowledge of psychology and the one who is able to assess his personality to match his passion and profession.

Presently career of students are chosen by them due to the availability of the limited subjects or profession. The lack of career counseling made students to choose the profession that looked attractive and trendy without understanding their personality and interests. Number of people blindly follow their friends and siblings for the academic and career selection. Career counseling can play an important role in the right selection a person’s career path. It is very essential that career counseling must be established at all educational levels in a true sense to make people give right direction to choose what they love to do in life. If the right career selection is done through proper career counselor, a lot can be contributed towards the society by each individual. It is the duty of educational policy makers to save the life of students by providing right dimensions exerting less efforts.