Career planning and personality assessment

By Hina Malik



Making important decisions in life also require knowing thyself. The selection of a life partner is one important decision that a person makes in his or her life … another equally-important decision is selecting a career for oneself through self assessment of one’s personality.
Personality assessment is primarily a process in which an individual takes the help of information regarding different areas of one’s personality on the basis of several parameters such as likeness, strengths, weaknesses, competence, adjustability, socialising skills, extroversion, introversion, etc.

This knowledge can play an important role in the life of the students as it may identify their needs and areas of improvement at an early stage, preferably the class seven or eight level. The early identification would not only give them a chance to improve on their weaker areas but also open future opportunities for them.
Students in our society start thinking about their careers usually after Matriculation or O-Levels. The challenge for them comes at the time of making the final decisions which is when they need to rush and hence make career decisions on the basis of unrealistic grounds such as market trend, parental influence, course with short duration of study, lack of interesting courses offered by recognised and top institutions, salary and benefits after graduation, and the cost of the course. Those who select a career on the basis these facts have no specific focus. They usually stay confused and are bound to face difficulty in finding a suitable and stable job for themselves.

Knowing thyself and awareness about your personality can minimise the outcome of such challenges. This would identify the needs of students at an early stage; provide them room for counseling and space for reflection and thinking. It also provides insight to teachers and parents to channelise children’s talent in a positive manner. Therefore, the people working with the students should pay attention to their unique profile of strengths and weaknesses, be ready to support their natural gifts and help them deal with any special challenges that they might face. It is also wise to give special attention to their individuality.

There are several personality tests and psychological inventories available in the market as well as online. The procedure is simple. You are just required to provide your email address and respond to the specific set of questions given to you. The report or outcome of your responses would either be given to you at the time of the test or by email later on. It is also recommended to consult a trained psycholoisgt or qualified career counselor for your personality assessment before making your career choices.
The writer is an industrial psychologist and career counselor.

First published in Dawn Newspaper
http://www.dawn.com/2011/01/02/career-planning-and-personality-assessment.html

At the career crossroads

By Hafsah Sarfraz 


Today’s world focuses on more variety than what was offered to the previous generations. Take coffee for example … there are so many types of coffee to choose according to your taste and preference. Ice cream, which was available in maximum 10 flavors a few years ago, comes in hundreds of different flavors and combinations now. New cell phone models keep popping into the market everyday while giving us a greater variety to choose from. From lawn prints to cars, laptops or anything you can think of the variety is just growing giving us an astounding amount of choices today.

Rooting out illiteracy

KARACHI:  Nabila, Zahoor and Majida faced the same problem that many of their peers in government-run schools do: they lacked the means to pursue higher education.

But things took a fortunate turn for these ambitious yet underprivileged children. Nabila, who hails from a typical Punjabi family from Minhalla, is now the first member of her family to study to complete her Masters while Zahoor Ahmed from Mauribad has realised his dream of being an electrical engineer. And 14-year-old Majida, after losing her home and family members during the devastating floods in Shahdad Kot, is now able to read and write Urdu.
There are similar other narratives of how students, hampered by financial shortfalls, were given a chance to get educated. For instance, students of Sindh Madrassa Board (SMB) Fatima Jinnah — previously considered a substandard institution — now have the resources and teachers to compete aside the top league of school in Karachi.
The mushrooming of non-governmental organisations and community-based initiatives in the field of education has made these success stories possible. However, the offer for free or subsidised provision of education hardly attracted scores of eager students to these institutions.
In a country where children and women are often fraught with the obligation to financially support their families, even the opportunity of acquiring education gratis is not attractive. Yet despite the odds, the perseverance of the people behind these initiatives helped them survive and achieve the tall order of educating Pakistan’s poor youth.