Choosing the right career for yourself can be extremely confusing and scary, and why not, it does play a significant role in shaping the rest of your life. So, making the right choices and informed decisions during the early years of your career, or right after you finish school or college can give you a headstart in a specific domain and might also help you avoid too much struggle or confusion in your professional life.
People do have the choice to switch careers at mid-stage but everyone might not get the same liberty. So, rather than trying to reform things at a later stage, it is always better to focus on the right thing to do now, especially if it is about your career. This is where career coaching plays a crucial role during the most important years of students. This blog tells you what career coaching is and how students can benefit from it.
What is Career Coaching?
Career coaching is specialized mentorship or personalized guidance to help freshers or professionals in career development. Career coaches mainly help students with searching for jobs, CV-building, interview preparation, and setting up goals. There are various types of career coaching that cater to specific requirements like career discovery coaching, resume enhancing coaching, interview, job search, career development, and leadership coaching.
Benefits of Career Coaching for Students
Career coaches mentor students and help them gear up for their respective careers. Here are a few crucial benefits of career coaching for students.
1. Personalized Guidance
Being a student, it is normal for you to be worried about your career choices, especially if you are planning to pursue unconventional fields. There are a lot of ifs and buts and how to’s that make you feel confused. You can seek career coaching to get clarity. A career coach learns about your background, interests, strengths, fears, skills, thoughts, and most importantly, your goals. They provide personalized career guidance by building a rapport with students. A career coach will not only help you decide the right career field but also guide you through the path ahead by answering questions like what courses you can pursue, where you can apply, how you can get financial aid, how you can acquire relevant skills in that sector, and other related questions.
Recommended Read: 7 Ways You Can Help Your Child in Selecting the Right Career
2. Establish Professional Goals
One of the most vital benefits of career coaching is that it helps establish professional goals. A career coach can help you prepare a roadmap for your professional journey. They can guide you on how to figure out what your goals should be, how you can achieve those goals, when is the right time to work on a specific goal, how to stay focused on your goals, and how to align your professional goals with your other interests.
3. Interview Preparation
Interviews are a mandatory step in the recruitment process. You have to clear several interview rounds before you secure a job. Many people get nervous during interviews, blurt out wrong answers or fail to impress the interviewer either due to lack of communication or lack of skills. Career coaching can help you with interview preparation by taking multiple mock interviews and providing you with honest feedback and tips to get better. They can also guide you on how to answer technical questions during the interview. Also, they prepare you for salary negotiations during interviews.
4. Enhance CV
One of the most important factors that make you eligible for a job is your CV. Recruiters look at your CV to shortlist you for any job. A career coach can help you create an impressive CV. Career coaching will make you introspect and focus on your interests and strengths while creating a CV. A career coach also helps you figure out the skills that you can add to enhance your CV. They also guide you on what skills are relevant for a particular job or field, and how you can acquire those through practical training or professional courses. Career coaches are experts at tailoring CVs for specific jobs. You get to learn what you should add or remove from your CV to get shortlisted for a job.
5. Build Confidence
Students are often disheartened and demotivated due to peer pressure or family pressure. A career coach steps into the shoes of a confidant, a mentor, or a friend who patiently listens to your problems, offers you specific solutions, helps you realize your interests, makes you see your potential, and motivates you to work towards your goals. Career coaching can help you become a confident and ambitious professional at a later stage in life. This is how career coaching has the power to change lives and is quintessential during your school or college years.
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How to Make the Most of Your Career Coaching Sessions?
Now that you are aware of the benefits of career coaching, you might be inclined to speak to a career coach. Before you begin taking career coaching sessions, here are a few things that you must keep in mind.
- Be upfront about your goals:- Opening up to your career coach, especially as a student, might seem difficult initially. However, if you want to get the best advice, you should not be afraid to tell your coach about your goals and ambitions. For instance, if you want to pursue higher studies in an unconventional field, explain that to your career coach in detail.
- Ask questions:- As a student, you might not be aware of many career paths so there can be times when you do not understand what the career coach tells you. Therefore, you should be ready to ask questions. It is better to prepare a specific set of questions before the session.
- Have faith in your coach:- Lastly, you should trust your career coach to give you the best career advice. You should remember that career coaches are professionals who have years of experience in guiding students.
Conclusion
A career coach offers personalized guidance by understanding your circumstances. You can seek career coaching at any stage of your professional life. It is better to consult a career coach and be sure about your career path while you are a student.
If you are a student and are looking for career coaching, you can reach out to Mindler to receive expert career guidance from experienced coaches. Mindler offers career assessment and counselling to school students at affordable prices. So, take career counselling online right away to get clarity!.
