Career Guidance Services…

Choosing the right career is one of the most important decisions we get to make in life.   We spend an enormous amount of time at work, in yet a large portion of the population are actually not suited to the careers they’re in.  More often than not, careers are not planned.  They just happen through circumstances. The result – unhappy, de-motivated employees moving from one company to the next trying to find job satisfaction. The irony is, it may not be their employer causing their  unhappiness – it may be that they are unsuitably matched to the career they’re in!

You may be thinking that career guidance is only for school children who haven’t begun working as yet.  Well, my oldest career guidance client was in fact 55 years of age.  She told me that she had at least 10 years left of work and she needed to find an alternative career.  Now in her case, instead of looking at study options, we focused on brainstorming ideas based on the experience and skills she had gained in her life.  It worked and she was motivated and inspired to shift her career slightly into a similar field.   There really is no time dead-line to identify your ideal career. Whether you’re 16 or 50, the only person resisting change is yourself.  That “change” may just be for the better!  In today’s computer age, we have the means to match individuals to a range of careers by following a very simple process.     To find out more about our Career Guidance Service, please click HERE

Choosing subjects in grade 9 shouldn’t be difficult if you are honest with yourself regarding your strengths and weaknesses. However, at the age of 14/15, sometimes one doesn’t quite know what these strengths and weaknesses are, especially given that the personality is not fully developed as yet. The main question which needs to be carefully considered is whether or not to choose Science related subjects as without these, there is no possibility in the future to study careers related to this field ie. Engineering, Building, Medicine. IT Programming. Having been involved in the career guidance field for many years, it has become relatively easy to discern whether a young adult has the overall ability to pursue careers within the Science field or not. In all honesty, if one is failing Mathematics and Science in grade 9, what is the likelihood of one excelling in these subjects in Matric and going on to study these subjects at tertiary level. Pretty slim, therefore, my suggestion would be to rather NOT jeopardize one’s Matric results by choosing subjects that will ultimately, never be used in one’s career. Regarding any other career choice, whether or not you choose the subject matter at hand, is irrelevant to you being able to enter that particular career for example, one can study to become an Accountant without having chosen Accounting at school. So, in light of this, this is a quick and easy exercise to assist you in determining what subjects you should consider taking… (Refer to attachment below) Now, what can you establish from the above information? Is your highest mark subject the same as your favorite subject? Are the lower mark subjects your least favourite? Are you currently failing Mathematics or Science? Are you perhaps interested in the going into the medical profession or perhaps studying programming or engineering? If these careers interest you, and you are failing Mathematics and Science, do you think you could improve your marks dramatically? Are you willing to take extra lessons? If not, if may be a more realistic idea to dismiss these careers as an option and not to choose them as subjects. If however, you are doing well in Mathematics and Science but have no desire to move into the Medical, Engineering or IT field, take them anyway. When you get to the age of 16, a full psychometric assessment can be administered to determine which careers you would be best suited to. Given that your knowledge at your age is relatively limited as to what careers are out there, don’t limit your options by not taking Mathematics and Science (once again, if you are not struggling with these subjects) If you are unclear or need further clarity in choosing subjects, please be sure to give us a call.  

In the South African education system there is inadequate provision for vocational guidance or assessment of individual learners. This weakness results in unnecessary costs for the country as well as social discontent and hardship. The majority of young people leave school with only a vague knowledge of employment opportunities, and with little insight as to the most appropriate career choice for their abilities. A large number of school leavers receive no training at all beyond school and are virtually unemployable. Yet, if pointed in the correct direction, they could become an asset to this country’s economy. Those school leavers who believe their only chance of future employment (with current unemployment around 40 %), is gaining some form of tertiary education, irrespective of their suitability for their subjects chosen. Little wonder that the drop-out rate for first year tertiary students stands around 35 %! The solution – Career guidance and assessment at grade 11, as undertaken in most first world countries, would help alleviate this hardship. With the aid of modern technology, and through the use of psychometric assessments, choosing the wrong career at an early age should be a thing of the past. However, one needs to be aware of the shortfalls in using such instruments before basing one’s careers choice on the results. It is imperative that a career guidance counsellor provide a student with feedback on the test findings and a solid methodology in planning a career be followed. It is only after this process that students should embark on a job shadowing program.

Vocational guidance or assessment of individual learners is poorly handled within the educational system. This weakness leads to poor career decision-making, which in turn means unnecessary wasting of money as well as frustration, discontentment and hardship. Most young people leave school with only a vague knowledge of employment opportunities and with little insight on the most appropriate career direction for their abilities, interests and personalities. A large number of school leavers receive no training at all beyond school and become virtually unemployable. And yet, if pointed in the correct direction, they could have become assets to the economy. Many school leavers believe their only chance of future employment lies in gaining some qualification. So, they rush into some sort of tertiary education, irrespective of their suitability for the subjects chosen. Little wonder that the dropout rate for first year students at college and university stands at around 35 %! It is at this point that the first of the wasted costs occur, especially by companies who award bursaries to students. The next area of wasted costs comes after these school and university leavers are employed. Research shows that a large proportion of employees feel “stuck” in their careers. This leads to low morale, poor performance and bad service levels. Further company training tends to have only a short-term effect. In the end, unhappy employees either leave or are dismissed. In either case, the cost to the business is substantial – recruitment costs, training costs, hidden costs resulting from the poor performance and the lack of continuity within the business. In the case of dismissal, there could well be added costs arising from stringent labour laws. The Psychological cost to the employee and his family in either case can also be considerable. The solution lies in proper career guidance and assessment at grade 11 level. This is standard in most first world countries, and would help alleviate much of this hardship and unnecessary expense. It could also play an important role in reducing the high unemployment rate. With the aid of modern technology and the use of Psychometric assessments, choosing the wrong career at an early age should be a thing of the past. But, somehow, this doesn’t always happen. One should however be aware that these assessments are not perfect and you should be careful before basing a career choice on the results produced. For a Psychometric assessment to be effective in Career Guidance and HR Development, it needs to:

The recruitment process, more often than not results in a subjective opinion made by the hiring manager. Laura Kartus, MD of Assessments Online comments: “when applying for a job, a candidate typically will present the “best” picture, saying what you want to hear, wearing their best attire and all in all, creating a perfect picture. This however, in not what a recruitment decision should be based upon – fortunately, subjective decisions can be a thing of the past given that we now have the technology required to determine one fundamental question – can the candidate do the job”. The Prevue Assessment does just this – By identifying the key criteria required to do a particular job, a benchmark can be created. This benchmark is based upon a number of different traits which when hiring, can be used to match potential candidates against. Often employers are only focused on their top performers, however, developing a benchmark for their bottom performers can be just as beneficial. Take a moment and reflect upon your workforce. What if you took a look at your existing employee base and divided them into three distinct groups: Top Performers TOP PERFORMERS YOU WISH YOU COULD CLONE Average Performers NOT IDEAL BUT CAN BE DEVELOPED Under Performers THE GROUP YOU WISH YOU HADN’T HIRED Now – ask one question in relation to this grouping: What is your objective in the recruitment process? I expect that, like majority of employers, your answer will be – to hire somebody in the top third = your top performers. This would sound like the logical answer however, the likelihood of always finding someone that suitable is rather slim. I would argue that you should give equal time to insuring that you never again hire somebody in the bottom third. Think about it – I expect that you, like most managers, are quite prepared to coach and develop the people in the middle group, but do not have the time or inclination to developing people who were a bad recruitment decision to begin with. Therefore, identifying the common characteristics people in this sector share, will assist you in future recruitment decisions. The benchmarking process is identical to that of creating a top performer profile – Start by identifying who the people are who have not succeeded in this job. By assessing them, Prevue will develop a concurrent benchmark based on the key criteria you in the future, wish to avoid. In all likelihood you will identify several common themes of behaviour. Now, armed with this insight, you can add new dimensions to your decision making around applicant suitability by adding critical zones (red zones) to your Prevue benchmark. You will now be armed with information on those variances from the benchmark that you can’t live with. So – when you have less than an ideal fit (70 %) to the desired benchmark, you now make a decision based on the criteria you under circumstances are able to live with. Prevue enables you to tweak benchmarks as positions & people change – don’t be content with the first benchmark you create . Re-define the benchmark as the position changes and evolves over time. You’re be amazed at how accurate your hiring process will become, eliminating guesswork thereby making accurate recruitment decisions.