Career Counselor

If you often find yourself giving advice to your friends and family about their careers and if you thoroughly enjoy this, a job as a career counselor would be perfectly suited to you. You must have excellent interpersonal skills and be able to communicate effectively with people.

This career is for those who have a general idea about different professional choices available to a wide variety of people. They must be friendly, approachable people who are able to deal with people from all backgrounds career counselors must be patient people at work. They have to realize that their services will never yield instant results.

Choosing a career is one of the most important decisions an individual can make in his or her life, and so a counselor should expect to answer and ask a lot of intense and difficult questions before a final choice can be reached.

Career counseling or careers advice, as it is commonly referred to as, entails processes such as career changing and career exploration along with many other career related choices. People who generally wish to seek information and advice about what professional path they should adopt in their life turn to career counseling to answer their questions.

Research is an essential part of working as a career counselor. They must be up-to-date with the most recent information about careers, job opportunities, salary statistics and employment figures. Career counselors must have extraordinary knowledge about every imaginable career path so that they provide informed guidance.

A career counselor typically gets to know a client before giving them official advice. They ask a range of personal, professional and academic questions before they provide the client with various options that they would be most suited to. Increasingly, employers are giving more importance to the interest of their clients as opposed to their qualifications. Career counselors also use formal compatibility tests to test the affinity of a particular person to a particular career path.

Most career counselors see their job to ensure that their clients strike the best possible balance between the highest possible salary and maximum job satisfaction. Once career counselors help find their clients ideal career paths, they generally work on preparing them for the job. Mock interviews and job entry tests may be conducted to facilitate this.

While formally there might not be any necessary qualifications for career counselors, bachelor’s or master’s degrees in psychology, counseling, career counseling or vocational guidance provide considerable opportunities to prospective career counselors.

Most jobs do not provide training, so it is essential that applicants have some kind of demonstrated understanding of the field. One method of certification is to undertake the National Board for Certified Counselors (USA) course in career counseling. Such a qualification would give an applicant considerable preference over others.

The level of salary offered to career counselors depends on the kind of setup they are in. Independent career counselors often charge a fixed amount per client, whereas those who work in colleges, schools and other educational or employment institutions work for a fixed annual salary.

It is commonly acknowledged that career counselors do not earn a considerable amount. but annual salary, according to statistics, can vary anywhere between 15,000 and 25,000 per month as entry level. Experience and competence typically lead to a higher salary between 35,000 to 60,000 per month. Another major contributing factor is the employer. Private educational institutes tend to pay a lot more than government run educational institutes.

Career counselors enjoy most benefits of a full time job, including paid vacation, health insurance and bonuses. Gratuities from happy clients are also frequent for independent career counselors or those employed by employment agencies.

An average day as a

career counselor

generally involves meeting a considerable number of people and engaging in long one-on-one discussions with them. Many career counselors, in a typical day, could deal with up to 5 clients fully, whereas others tend to divide the counseling over a longer period of time.

The job generally has fixed timings and overtime work is normally not required. The hours may vary depending on the employer. School career counselors may only have to work during school hours, whereas other career counselors may work standard office hours. Career counseling is a desk job The job requires him to be available in one place during work hours, so it is imperative that a

career counselor

always be in his or her office during specified times.

Career counseling is a very rewarding profession. One feels a sense of accomplishment when they help aide an important decision in somebody else’s life. Clients are generally very grateful and respectful for the services provided by career counselors as they make their lives much easier by providing all available information relevant to careers they are interested in.

Moreover, career counseling often opens paths for individuals to pursue more lucrative counseling careers such as psychological counseling. People with some kind of experience, such as that in career counseling, are often preferred to fresh graduates.

Grateful clients occasionally gift career counselors if their advice was helpful in making the right decisions. These may vary, from tips to non-monetary gratuities.

Many find it exasperating to work in an office environment all day every day. The job may get monotonous as people tend to ask similar questions about the most popular career paths.

Since a career path is a very important decision in a person’s life, it can often be a difficult one to reach. Career counselors must bear with confused individuals one after the other. A lot of people may even leave without having reached a final decision. A career counselor must remain patient throughout and merely provide all information about a clients options so that he or she can make an independent, informed choice.

There is a considerable level of competition in this field. The demand for career counselors, while it has increased slightly over the past few years because of the recession, is still a fairly low number. As a result, the few available jobs are generally well fought over and the most qualified and experienced individuals are obviously preferred.

Developed countries generally have the best market for career counselors. The rule of thumb is that the more the educated people in a particular place, the more career counseling is required. The more populated, developed and educated areas of the world have the best prospects for professionals in this field.

India is probably not the best place to become a career counselor. Career options are generally considered a family matter. It is rare for families to seek outside help for such a decision, and so the demand for career counselors is considerably low.

Take humanities or science in Class 12. Do graduation in Psychology, followed by a postgraduate diploma in guidance and counselling. People take up this career without a good grounding in psychology but they need to learn how to administer psychometric tests