I am an engineering student and if history and being vouched for by "word-of-mouth" is anything to go by, engineering students are a frustrated lot. Crazy work hours and asinine professors bent on screwing with your career is the common sight/plight for us. Maybe the medical profession comes a close second with their indelible predicament of studying the human anatomy and whatnot to conquer "MBBS" and then specializing in a field for Masters degree and consequently fighting it out with the "your-friendly-neighbourhood-doc" tag. Yea, it's a tough world out there so we know.
So apart from the most sought after fields which are the godforsaken "Engineer" and "Doctor" tags, we have a host of options like C.A and ummmm, aaaaaa, uuummmmm, hang on. Here's where you come in Mr/Ms. Career Counsellor. In a bloated, claustrophobic environment such as India's where the parents force-feed their kids everything from Complan and Horlicks to H.C Verma and dancing and karate lessons, the child's encumbered by his desires against the rant of a totalitarian society.
A Career Counsellor is the person who sits down with the adolescent and gauges his/her abilities via cognitive ability tests and personality assessment. S/He acts as an intermediary to what the adolescent has and what his active potential could be if harnessed. They most typically have a background in vocational psychology or organizational psychology. Even though this career is still in it's nascent stages in India, there will be an outright increase in the demand for career counsellors as parental pressure fluctuates and children battle it out over career choices that are tailor-made for them and not dictated by the norms and dreams of society and their parents.
Nowadays, as work satisfaction slowly but steadily takes over the desire to climb the corporate ladder at any cost, hordes of professionals are taking the plunge into what they truly believe in, work that they enjoy. For taking such a move, they need expert guidance and a mindset to leave a stable job and jump with or without a 'chute. Here too, career counsellors plays a vital role in categorically breaking down the vital and realistic chances of prancing into that world where they want to be in. A Career Counsellor needs to be well versed and have a clear understanding of aptitudes, abilities and resources so as to realistically assess the chances and prospects in a given line of work while directing someone. The framework within which a career counsellor has to work requires tremendous skill and willingness to learn about a person's strentghs, pros and cons before giving a decision on a career choice.
Otherwise, there will hardly be any difference between the inane astrologer who lets his parrot pick a tarot and the counselor who just charges a bigger amount to decide your future.
