Career Advancement Counseling: Going where you never thought you’d go

If there’s one thing that I wish I had had during high school it would be a better idea of where I wanted my post-secondary education to take me. As it stood, by the time I had left high school I had absolutely no idea what I wanted out of my life or how university was going to help me. When I reluctantly chose a program in university I wasn’t completely sure that the career path I had chosen was the correct one.

Then, several years later, I came to a crossroads: I was growing increasingly unhappy regarding my career, and I didn’t know where to go or who to turn to for guidance. At the recommendation of a few friends (and colleagues) I went and saw a “career advancement counselor” regarding my career path and my lease on life.

I was never one to go see a counselor when I had a problem or a question that I couldn’t answer, however, I felt that seeing a career advancement counselor really opened up a lot of doors for me. Of everything that we talked about, the most important things to me are:

1. Career guidance – I took several tests when I was at the counselor’s office that helped me determine what my interests and long-term goals were. I learned quickly (and simply confirmed) that I was not the kind of person that would be content behind a desk doing data entry, programming, or web design.

The personality testing was the most beneficial to me as it gave me a great insight into who I was as a person and what I would be best at. Selling, creating relationships, and marketing were things that came out as my strong suite, while mundane, repetitive tasks were the ones that I found the least amount of interest in.

2. University program options – The career counselor laid out some options for me assuming I stopped going to work and became a student full time or if I became a part-time student and attended classes in the evening. I’ve always found a fair degree of difficulty when approaching universities because the universities can be hard for me to navigate through and find the correct information.

If I needed to take university classes to advance my career the options where cleanly laid out for me.

3. The career advancement counselor already knew what I’d be looking for - After I had decided on where I’d like my career to go she told me the classes that may be required to get there, personal changes I may have to make, and possible employment routes that I could take. From there, the decision to actually commit to the changes required became a relatively easy one.

My career counselor set me up with a full program at a local university that was composed entirely of evening classes, all of which are completely accredited, and would allow me to get a degree in marketing and advertising in three years. There’s no way I would have been able to do that on my own.

If you find yourself frustrated with where your life is sitting you may find an enormous amount of benefit from sitting down with a career counselor and finding out what your options are and how you could go about making the changes required for you to be happy. For me it was a bit of education and a few steps in the right direction, and that four hour meeting wound up being a life changing one.