Career advices can help a lot in shaping your career. They can give a certain direction to your career, improve your performance and also help you in dealing with various challenges in your career. Let's take a closer look at how career advice can help you in shaping your career.
- Giving Direction
Career advice provides you with important information regarding your future career and by helping you choose a career objective give a direction to your career and life in general. This also helps you focus your efforts and can be of great significance in long run.
- Help in Choosing Right Field
Choosing a career field that is right is necessary for a successful career and happy life. Also as the career changes can be of great significance and always have significant penalties associated with them it is very important that you choose the right career at the first time. Career advice can help you choose a career that is right for you in these two ways.
- Providing Information
First of all, it provides you with information about various career fields and job profiles that are open to you or that you can choose. This makes you aware of all your options so that you can take an informed decision,
- Strengths and Weaknesses
Career advice can also make you aware of your own strengths and weaknesses. This combined with your interest, inclinations and hobbies will help you determine which of the various options open to you is most appropriate for you.
- Help With Job Search
Career advice can help shape your career by helping with job search. Following are some of the points that you should consider when looking for a job that is right for you.
- Work Responsibilities
Career advice can inform you about day to day responsibilities associated with a particular job. This along with information about the skill and knowledge required for the job, target and performance appraisal methods etc can help you decide if a job is right for you or not.
- Major Employers
Knowing about the major employers that offer job matching a particular job profile can be of great help in job search. This will help you in applying for jobs and will also influence how you prepare for job interview and associated tests.
- Locations
Location is a very important factor in job search. The kind of job you are searching for may not be available locally and employers are usually reluctant to hire someone who would have move to a new place and prefer to hire local people. Career advice can help you identify the jobs that are available in local places as well as the locations where a certain kind of job is available.
- Pay Scales
Pay scale is a factor that is often overemphasized in job search. But in any case it is a very important criterion to consider when you are looking for a job. Career advice can provide you with information about pay scales related to a job. This can help you in salary negotiations as well as help you determine whether a certain job is right for you or not.
- Preparing For Job Interview
A job interview is a very important point in your career. Your performance in it will determine whether you'll get the job or not and can also influence the salary that you will be offered. Career advice in form of interview tips and lists of interview questions can help you prepare for job interview and thereby help in shaping your career.
- Making a Career Plan
Having a career plan gives you a certain goal to target. This in short term gives focus to your efforts, keeps you motivated and prevents you from getting stuck on a career Plato. Unfortunately most of the times in your career, you can see only a step or two ahead of you. This prevents you from making effective long term career plans. Career advice can help you in your career planning by outlining your prospective career paths and objectives as well as how you can reach them.
- When on Job
Career advice can be of great help in shaping your career by providing tips that can help you with your job. These can fall into one of the two categories:
- Performance Improvement
These tips can help you improve your actual as well as apparent performance and thereby help you advance in your career. These could be about communication and social skills, time management and other ways to improve performance specific to a particular job.
- Dealing With the Job Issues
On the job issues such as job stress, overwork, conflict with colleagues or seniors can have severe impact on your career. Career advice can help in shaping career by providing tips for dealing with such issues.
- Helping With Career Change
Most people face career or job changes in their life at one time or another. Career advice can help you manage such change efficiently and effectively in two major ways.
First it can make you aware of your options by providing you with information about the opportunities that are available to you considering your knowledge, skills and experience. Secondly career advice can provide information about market condition and suggest the right time for a voluntary career change.
In case of involuntary career change, career advice can help you decide the best way to utilize your time and efforts so that the negative impact on your overall career can be minimized. It can also provide important guidance for job search.
The points mentioned above cover only part of how career advice can be of help in shaping your career. The thing is, most of the time you'll not realize that you can use some career advice. It is good idea in general to visit the career advice portals once in a while. You'll more than likely find something that can prove helpful to you.
