What Every Parent Should Know About Career Counselling

Every parent wants his or her child to be successful in life. But with the changing times and increased competition, it is essential to allow your child to pursue alternative careers apart from the standard options of a Doctor, Engineer, MBA etc. Even in the 21 st century, parents tend to believe in the traditional opinion that good academic performances are the key to a bright future. Without understanding the difference between advising and enforcing, they unknowingly pressure their child to opt for a career he or she doesn’t have any interest in.

How can then this problem be solved? The simplest solution is career counselling. Your child has immense potential which is yet to be discovered and explored. This is where career counselling comes into the picture and has helped many young minds grow and make informed career decisions. Career counselling provides information about possible career options and also evaluates and understands a student’s personality, interests, abilities, and skills. According to statistics, 44% of youth say that career counselling is important for them but only 1 out of 10 students receive career guidance in India. What do you think could be the reason for this? The answers have always been the same - decreased awareness, parental and peer influence, and general confusion among Indian families as career counselling seems like an unknown option still. Even today, India still needs 1.4 million career counsellors to achieve the standard ratio of 250:1 (students: counsellor).

Also Read | How To Help Your Child Choose The Right Career

Need for Career Counselling

Let us cover a few questions that illuminate the need for career counselling:

Do you understand your child’s interests?

• In the present scenario, choosing a career is becoming increasingly complex. Due to advanced technologies and new careers emerging, career confusion is more common today.
• Younger minds are attracted to rising careers, whereas parents insist on sticking to the traditional career routes and playing safe. At this point, career counselling is necessary to bridge the gap between parents and children.

Is money a hindrance to your child's future?

• Financial issues should not be a hurdle in your child’s education. Education counsellors can give you valuable information about any scholarships that are available for that particular institution or the course your child is willing to take up.
• Many meritorious students want to study abroad to get more exposure and they even have the right grades to get into the university of their choice. However, the cost of this option seems too high for a normal salaried person to pay for the higher education of his/her child.
• Universities/institutions abroad provide financial aid scholarships that a student may not know of. Career counsellors can guide them in this aspect and help them apply for the right scholarship in the institution of their choice.

Are your children unaware of the career options they have?

• Quite frequently, children themselves don’t know what field they want to choose. They end up going along with their parents' choices, becoming a shadow of what their parents aspired them to be.
• Proper guidance is required for children who are yet to choose a field or a domain of their interest because, without professional guidance, they may wake up for a 9-5 office job that they don’t like. They will end up regretting their decision and leading an unhappy life.

Want to solve these problems on one platform?

Visit ProTeen, a fully integrated digital career guidance platform that exposes students and their parents to 26+ industry clusters and provides detailed insights for over 600+ careers. It provides a personalised report and a detailed roadmap for your child that takes into account all aspects of their personality, skills, and interests. In this era of technology, ProTeen is a new and much-needed change in the industry of career guidance. ProTeen’s scientifically accurate psychometric assessments help identify the true strengths and weaknesses of a student. The innovative role-play option provides your child with an experiential and real-world understanding of various 21 st -century careers and helps them make the right career decisions that they won’t regret later. ProTeen’s proprietary 3D Awareness Engine is designed to provide a scientific, holistic, and experiential approach to making smart career decisions in the 21st century. Don’t wait for the right time to come, it is now!

Be Career Ready

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