The professional life of a person today needs to be conceived as a career. A path not without its crossroads and ramifications. In other Bekia Psicología articles we have talked about job instability , and also atypical work modalities, indicative that the world of work has become a spiral of variability in professional performance. Statistics tell us that the current worker, especially among young people, will develop their professional career in a greater number of positions and companies than ever before . Without going into assessing the psychosocial risks That this implies for people, or the consequent transformation of life trajectories in the bulk of the population, this article aims to delve into the future possibilities that a person can try to guide in their current life.

At the center of this context is employability as the defining term of the professional career. Employability responds to the equation that determines the possibility of a worker to achieve a job. It refers to the backpack of experiences, training, competences and skills that the worker has garnered in his academic and professional career , with which he presents himself as an attractive asset for the organizations to which he is applying as a candidate for a specific position.

Employability in a flexible labor market

In a concept as heterogeneous as employability, there is room for multiple itineraries, and a context of labor flexibility requires the worker to shape their own professional profile. This responsibility demanded of the current worker, who provides his service to the economic system of each state through companies and public and private organizations, is a very evident source of stress and discomfort in Western societies. Given this circumstance, this article aims to collect resources and guidelines to try to orient or reorient the professional career with support, and trying to minimize the discomfort that these processes can generate.

A flexible framework, on the positive side, allows for a more open conception of a person’s professional career. Perhaps, at some point, the race can be reoriented in one direction or another. On some occasions, this reorientation arises spontaneously: an opportunity that arises and it is decided to take advantage of it. Perhaps in a position or profile that had not been anticipated, but suddenly the door opens to new job opportunities. At other times, the worker simply needs a change: that reorientation can be planned , and best of all, we have many resources to help you try to order these changes.

What to consider if you want to change your professional career

As a general rule, employability requires a certain consistency in our performance. Radical changes, such as resounding changes in the professional sector, primarily require time. However, they are possible. Changes to adjacent sectors are not only possible, but they are extremely common, and also necessary. Posing a professional career with an open mind translates into a greater range of job possibilities to be carried out, while being obsessed with a very specific job, perhaps unattainable, is possibly the source of deep frustrations.

1. – Academic training

The starting point to redirect the professional career in any direction is academic training. The regulated studies have outputs labor common and others that are not so much but also offer possibilities. For example, in the case of psychology, the career path that comes to mind most quickly is clinical psychology. However, the Degree in Psychology has a wide range of associated professional careers: student counselor, intervention in learning disorders, human resources technician, professional counselor, intervention at risk of social exclusion … On the website of any training center or university you can find an information sheet associated with each branch of study at which delimits possible job opportunities.

Through this variability of options, a worker can try to break into adjacent career fields with ease. In fact, it is recommended that a person have a profile suitable for different professional opportunities, as this increases employment opportunities.

However, at other times the change needs to be resounding. A person may need to move into completely different career fields. For example, I once bumped into a girl in a job interview who was applying for a telecommunications engineering position. His first university career had been optical, a training with 100% job placement. However, this girl had developed a technical engineering a posteriori, and it was the position she was applying for this time. Obviously, I asked him why he had abandoned a professional field with 100% job insertion, in favor of a much more competitive one. His answer was completely valid, he simply preferred to develop his professional career in the engineering field. However, he commented that his work in optics had allowed him to develop social skills when contacting patients in consultation, and also commercial skills related to the sale. Despite the fact that optics and telecommunications engineering are two well differentiated areas, that girl had a general vision about her employability and knew how to relate skills obtained in her career with the new professional field in which she wanted to enter: an engineer with knowledge commercial and good treatment with clients is an asset.

However, hitting these field breaks is not always necessary to do a new university degree , in many cases the complementary training facilitates the transition from one field to another, or some type of postgraduate study in the case of highly qualified professional areas .

2.- Order the ideas

The main problem that many workers find today is the need to spin their professional careers. It is very common to locate erratic profiles, where a person presents excessive variability of professional fields that he has tried to develop with little depth. In general, this is not attractive to employers, and it seems difficult to justify in a job interview, for example. Therefore, it is necessary to make a speech that explains the different steps we have taken in our professional performance over time.

Reorienting professional development requires deep planning and meditation: ordering ideas, thinking about the potential that each worker has, as well as the possibilities of success in a new professional field . Think about the losses that this change also entails: for example, leaving a good job, and analyze if it pays off the effort of making your way into a new world of work. Set deadlines and trajectories, and create a planned path. It can never be an impulsive decision, but it can be a decisive one. If a worker is not happyor you do not feel fulfilled in your work area, and you have a clear alternative to take, it is an investment that is probably worth it. After all, the work aspect in our lives is an extremely important part, which determines the personal well-being as a whole.

Generating this planning and decision making is a truly complex process. However, it is a trance that must not be developed alone .

3.- Available resources

Today, as a result of a flexible labor market, there are a multitude of services designed to help people define their professional career. Common to all these services and social agents is that the worker who attends will be the one who finally has the decision about what to do or not to do with his future job. Therefore, anyone who goes to any of these agents will do so with the conviction that no type of imposition will be found.

The most obvious figure is that of the job counselor or career counselor . Usually linked to employment plans or public services, these professionals specialize in generating job placement plans in all types of profiles. The process to follow lies in evaluating a profile, its possibilities, and generating an activation plan to try to achieve a successful job placement. When they are linked to employment plans, their mission tends to be primarily to achieve this insertion. However, they are present in many training centers, universities, foundations, youth offices … in this case their guidance work offers advice, help and motivation to try to shape a professional career.

Employment agencies are an advisory service where technicians of different profiles offer support to assistants to achieve a job placement in different fields. What is interesting about placement agencies, also linked to universities, municipalities or foundations of all kinds, as well as NGOs, is that they have a wide range of resources to which beneficiaries can be referred. Thus, a worker may not be looking for work, but merely training to change professional field or grow in his own. In this particular case, the employment agencies may facilitate processes and offer the beneficiaries a catalog of services and possibilities.

Finally, the figure of coach is discovered as an important support for decision-making. The coaching consists primarily in a professional figure that has as its primary objective the development of capabilities. Thus, at a time of job uncertainty, or at a time when a person needs a change in their professional environment, the coach will facilitate this decision-making. It will help to create future projects, provide information and serve both as a dynamic and motivating element for professional projection. 

Elle Mcdonald

I am Elle Mcdonald Specializations in Psychology . Graduated in psychology from the University of Tennessee in 2000. Diploma of Advanced Studies in the Department of Personality, Evaluation and psychological treatments with excellent results.

First Level of Master in Clinical Psychology at the Center for Behavioral Therapists (recognized with a scientific-professional nature by the College of Psychologists)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *