CAREERS

Career Planning & Decision Making

Don't ask the question as to what is popular today but seek the answer to what will be the need of the hour ten years from now

Shivani Manchanda

The responsibility of making the right choice is immense. What fun would it be if God were to send us down with a lovely scroll in our hand providing guidelines about the best choices we could make!

Since God has not set any such tradition let's look at how to make a good decision and analyze the information that is out there. There are several subject options that we can choose from, both after class 10th and 12th.

The Balancing Act

The absolute first step that we need to take is to understand our interests, capabilities and most importantly, identify the drivers or passions in our system. You need to balance those with the negatives - the traits you don't have and areas that you are absolutely not interested in.

The second step would be analyzing the scope of certain careers and how you can uniquely succeed in integrating your interests with the personality attributes that are necessary for a particular career.

The Big Career Myths

One career fits all. Unfortunately, there is a tradition of going with the group. If the current trend is for commerce, all students choose that whether or not they are passionate about numbers and the process of making money. A decade ago science ruled the roost and students were forced into engineering or medicine and later IT or biotech.

Self-understanding

The questions you should be asking yourself: Am I a people's person? Do I enjoy working with numbers? Can I see myself sitting in front of a computer or in front of books all day? Or am I an outdoorsy kind of a person? Depending upon your answer one can uniquely blend a special career concoction for you.

Let's look at a simple example. If you are taking commerce in 11th and 12th but you prefer interacting with people and verbal communication is your strength, then it may be a good idea to pursue marketing or media or even event management after your 12th. However, if you are taking commerce and you love numbers, love thinking about profits and loss and could spend hours poring over account books, then yes, a CA or banking or economics can be appropriate. And if you are super hard-working and a total brain in maths, then Actuarial Science could be the path for you.

In principle it is possible to leverage your own personality traits in your career planning.

Career Scope

If you are in class 10th and class 12th today then you will be emerging in the job market 5 to 7 years from now. So when you are choosing a career also look at future trends. At the global policy level, if people are beginning to talk about carbon management and environment today then there is a strong chance that industry will be ready with jobs in a decade from now. Since you have to look for a career that is for tomorrow and not for yesterday don't ask the question as to what is popular today but seek the answer to what will be the need of the hour ten years from now. Google some information, read the newspaper and meet a career counsellor - put on your thinking cap and make the right choice. Good luck!

Shivani Manchanda has a Masters in Career Counselling from University of San Francisco and a Masters in Developmental Psychology from MS University Baroda. An international education specialist, she has dedicated the last 19 years to nurturing global minds for further education.