Career Planning

Cristina Trăistaru¹

Abstract: The development of career planning skills is a necessity, given the diversification of the educational and occupational offer. The orientation activities follow the personal development and the endowment of the young man with the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve an efficient management of his own career. Developing vocational identity and preparing young people for careers is one of the main objectives of the entire education process. Regardless of the values, motivation, skills and aptitudes we possess, it is important, in order to have a successful career, to know ourselves very well, to prepare ourselves as best as possible, to pursue the achievement of our own goals.

Keywords: career; planning; orientation; personal development; skills; education; options; decisions

Motto: “ If you do not know where you are going, you will probably get somewhere else.”

(L.A. Klatt, R.G.Murdich, F.E. Schuster)

The quarry is built step by step. The career involves a series of past, present and future experiences and events. Career planning is the process by which the needs, aspirations and opportunities are identified, it involves the elaboration of human resources development programs. Each person must plan their own career, this being possible from the earliest ages, based on competence, motivations and personal values.

From the banks of the school, students set goals in relation to their own careers and initiate actions to achieve them. It is a continuous process of adjusting the career goals to the personal characteristics and to the educational and professional offer, in permanent development; changing the professional path during the active life is an adaptive way to the dynamics of the labor market.

The orientation activities follow the personal development and the endowment of the young man with the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve an efficient management of his own career. This is especially necessary in the conditions of a flexible and largely unpredictable labor market, which is constantly changing both its external and internal configuration.

The demands of the jobs are constantly evolving:

• increases the complexity of the tasks to be performed;

• the number and complexity of knowledge, skills and skills to be exercised in the workplace increases;

• there is an increased pressure on the individual to make a series of decisions individually;

• the role of effective communication skills is emphasized;

• there is an increasing need for initiative, motivation and flexibility in the exercise of work tasks. The development of career planning skills is a necessity, given the diversification of the educational and occupational offer. In the case of students and beyond, the efficiency of career planning depends on the skills / knowledge of those in the following areas:

• self-knowledge - exploring and structuring information about oneself (interests, values, aptitudes, personality);

• educational and occupational exploration;

• career decision;

• personal promotion.

In order to know the educational and occupational opportunities that concern the nature of the work they want to perform, educational requirements to access the job, employment prospects, the environment, the work, the gain for being able to make them compatible with the interests, the values and the lifestyle, a very important role they have correct information. In this sense, students have various sources of information, such as:

- formal: brochures, leaflets, newspapers, magazines, websites, materials, or directly from specialized institutions NGO, AJOFM, ISJ, etc.

- informal: the informational interview (persons in positions that can provide accurate information about educational and occupational opportunities);

- direct experience (volunteering activities, working during the holidays);

- social network (parents, relatives, friends).

The Practice of Career Guidance in Our Country has Suffered Two Shortcomings

The first comes from a methodological deficiency - the orientation activity was carried out statically and punctually. The final years of a school cycle (8th grade, 12th grade, possibly 5th grade and only for very special cases the termination of kindergarten) were the moments of concentration of orientation actions (school, professional), when students, pressed and not armed with decision-making capabilities, they had to make a choice regarding the subsequent career path. In many cases, orientation activities consist only in informing students about the world of professions, without providing a grid for their interpretation and integration of these knowledge with oneself.

The second shortcoming was determined by a conceptual problem, namely the orientation was conceived as a special activity, which must be carried out in parallel with the education process and by specialized staff. This was largely left to schools and vocational guidance centers, which had very low human resources anyway and could not meet the multiple demands of schools in this way.

The development of vocational identity and the preparation of young people for careers is one of the main objectives of the entire education process. As the end of the primary cycle approaches, the interests of children become increasingly different. They learn the importance of knowing and understanding their own aptitudes, preferences and values for choosing the educational and professional path.

Next is the operation of the bumps. In the high school cycle the students develop an exploratory behavior: they explore their own vocational interests, experiment with many types of activities and observe the need to consider the balance of interests - aptitudes in expressing an educational or professional choice.

The choices made by the young man during this period can be vague and transient, and can be abandoned relatively easily when another vocational direction appears that seems to offer him satisfaction. The high school period is characterized by the crystallization of the vocational identity and an overview on the factors that influence the choice of the educational and professional path, which determines making more pragmatic decisions.

Unfortunately, There are Also Some Obstacles that Restrict the Range of Career Options

Gender of the person - there are gender differences in the choice of profession: for men the most important criteria in choosing the profession are: security, promotion possibilities and material benefits; for women, the type of work, work environment and colleagues matter, but due to the accepted gender roles, in these fields of option, girls choose professions considered more feminine: teacher, nurse, counselor, and boys the professions "masculine", this in the conditions under which the differences in performance between women and men in complementary professional fields can be explained by expectation theory: men have high expectations of success for professional fields considered masculine, while women have higher expectations of success in professional fields considered feminine.

Socio-economic status influences career choices and decisions. Children from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds tend to have shorter educational paths and choose professions that do not require long training.

Regardless of the values, motivation, skills and aptitudes we possess, it is important, in order to have a successful career, to know ourselves very well, to prepare ourselves as best as possible, to pursue the achievement of our own goals.

Bibliography

Agents, Lemeni Anca Gabriela (2012). Counseling and guidance. Career Education Guide. Activities for classes IX-XII / SAM. Bucharest: ASCR Publishing House.

Manolescu, A. Human resources management. 4th edition. Bucharest: Economic edition.

Sora, Simona Steluta (2017). Diplomatic career management. European Institute.