Ways to Improve Your Career Prospects

Whether you are a student or a working professional, pondering over the career prospects in your chosen field is not an amusing task to undertake. While every field of study is filled with immense possibilities that one can opt for, locating the ones that match your interests and ambitions is quite a rigorous process. Often students choose opportunities that doesn’t really reflect their inner calling and they end up getting stuck in a job that doesn’t seem to satisfy them. Deciding upon which path to take or which road to travel has been a question that everyone essentially needs to face just like Robert Frost who was also befuddled and lost in the thoughts of the ‘Road Less Travelled“. In these situations, you need to keep exploring the varied possibilities and striving towards the goals you have set for yourself. To help you find ways to improve your career prospects, we have brought a comprehensive blog listing down different techniques and tips you can implement to discover your true calling and follow the career path you are meant for. 

Make a Five-Year Plan 

To gain a perspective about what the future looks like for your career goals, make a career plan that is built based upon where you want to see yourself in the next five years so as to determine the steps you need to take in order to actualise your goals. A five-year plan can help you sort out your career prospects and choose the ones that you can realistically chase. While creating a long-term plan, you need to keep the following things in mind:

• Ponder upon the career path you want to follow and jot down your aspirations, ambitions as well as goals for the coming five years.
• Make a plan to determine how you will be achieving your specified career goals. Further, this will also help you explore the career prospects in your chosen field and the ways to follow them.
• Once you have made a list, break down your long-term goals into smaller and achievable ones and ensure that you keep a track on them on a timely basis.

Improve Your Communication Skills

For any profession, proficiency in either written or verbal communication or both is often a must. For instance, when you go for an interview, the interviewer not only checks out your resume but also tests your communication skills. So, on your path to better career prospects, being sharp in terms of communication can take you a long way especially in a client-facing job. That’s why grooming your communication skills is extremely important whether you are in the corporate sector or social sector.

Research About Your Field

When you find yourself inclined towards a particular career field, the first thing you need to do is research thoroughly about it. Explore the career prospects it offers as well as the academic programs offered in it which can equip with the required knowledge to pursue it as a vocation. Further, study the recent trends in your industry and explore the job opportunities you will be getting. Also, there are many fields in which you may only require a diploma or a short-term training program to secure a job while in many other, a degree is a necessary qualification to apply for a job. Thus, researching your career field will certainly assist you in deciphering the academic qualification required along with the opportunities it offers.

Improve Your Productivity 

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In a world that has specified a certain distinction between hard work vs smart work, employers look for candidates who have enhanced productivity and potential to chase strict deadlines. Whether you are planning for an exam or working a full-time job, you need to be inherently productive to get closer to success. There are several productivity improvement techniques you can utilise to ensure that you can fulfil your deadlines and tasks within time and some of these include,

• Keep a track of your time to determine how long does it takes to complete a task and how much time you spend on its different aspects. 
• It is believed that your full concentration has a time limit. Hence, take breaks at regular intervals. This way you can ensure that your mind does not get drained out and you are giving your complete attention to the task at hand.
• Give up your habit of multitasking as having too many things on your plate does not allow you to pay proper heed to the task and thus leads to decreasing your productivity.  

Seek a Career Counsellor 

Another way to improve your career prospects is to get in touch with a career counsellor who can provide you with expert knowledge on various career paths that are lucrative both monetarily as well as in terms of the kind of exposure they offer. Further, a career counsellor would introduce you to two things: 

1. Psychometric Analysis: Usually counselling experts ask their candidates to take a test that is like a combination of various sections pertaining to subjects like quantitative analysis, language, logical reasoning, abstract reasoning and analytical reasoning. Apart from this, the test also involves behavioural competencies. Based on this, a counsellor recommends you career prospects that are aligned with your interests, skills, strengths, and areas of development.
2. Introspection Document: In an introspection analysis, you are required to provide answers to certain questions that deal with the what, why, how, where aspect of your desires as well as how would you want your life to become. The idea of this test is to help you self introspect and see what is it that you want and how does that align with your aptitude and skills. 

Also Read:

• What is Career Counseling? 
• Need for Career Counseling after 10th 

[Bonus] Ways to Improve Your Career Prospects: Leverage Edu & Beyond

Striving to improve your career prospects? Not clear about where your interests lie or the right career path that suits your aspirations or ambitions? It is normal to feel confused about your career objectives and the right steps you should take to achieve them. To help you in sorting out these confusions, Leverage Edu is here to guide you at every step of your career journey whether you are a student or a working professional. Our AI tool assists you browse through an array of courses and university in your chosen field of interest which you further sort as per your preferences. If you are unsure about which field to study, our expert counsellors can help you take psychometric tests to locate a suitable career domain and explore the opportunities it offers. So, don’t wait up! Sign up for a free 30-minute career counselling session and let us provide you with the right guidance to build a rewarding career!