Career opportunities: Colleges, universities focus on in-house counselling

Students now develop an academic profile according to career choice.

LAHORE:

Many colleges and universities are focusing on providing students with in-house career counselling facilities “in keeping with the growing demand from students”.

Ali Mumtaz Warraich, who works at the career services office (CSO) at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, claimed that students now had a greater desire to learn about various career options and develop an academic profile accordingly. “They demand information in terms of what opportunities are available in the market and which are the best options for them,” he said.

Warraich has three colleagues at the centre which has been operational since 2009.

He said that besides career counseling, the office provided job placement services, informing students about job openings in various industries. The services include help from CV-writing, grooming sessions and on-campus interviews. The centre also holds career fairs. Students particularly thronged the office before the summer break, he said. “Most of the students are applying for internship programmes during summers so that they can build strong CVs,” he said.

From February to May, he said, recruitment drives were at the peak as students approached their graduation. Warraich said that there was a need for efforts to ensure that counselling facilities were available at all educational institutes. “You need to prepare students for the industry they are about to step in and, for that, strong career offices are essential,” he said.

Abdul Qayyum Chaudhry  ‑ chairman of the Pioneer Career Counselling and Placement Centre at the Punjab University, which has been operating since 2003 – said: “Our focus is career orientation to ensure good placement of our graduates in the job market.”

Though training and mock interviews took place throughout the year, the principal focus was on the final and 3rd year students, Chaudhry said. “It is extremely difficult to run a career centre without adequate resources including finances,” he said. Chaudhry said they were looking for permanent counsellors and volunteers.

He said there was no statistical data available to gauge students’ performance. “We have a large number of students. It is very difficult to track their placement,” he said. Ideally students should inform their departments and career centres about their job placement, he said. “This can help us understand the job demand and shift our focus accordingly,” he said.



“No educational institute properly addresses the issue of career counselling for its students,” said Forman Christian College Career Planning and Placement Director Mohammad Kashif Fida. Formed in 2005, the Career Planning and Placement Department has a counselling strategy charted down for its students. Career counseling starts from the sophomore year and continues until graduation. He said on-campus career fairs were held annually along with career drives, in which professionals hold informative sessions with students. “Market surveys are done, job availability in sectors calculated and students advised accordingly,” he said.

Fida said students required professional and practical guidance the most at the secondary and intermediate level. “Giving them an accurate vision of opportunities is what career counselling is all about,” he said. He pointed to the lack of academic programmes in career counselling, saying this was indicative of a lack of seriousness in addressing the issues in career counselling.

The Career Development Office at the Beaconhouse National University is still in its infancy. Speaking to The Express Tribune, BNU Marketing and External Relations Director ZaeemYaqoob said the department would be developed under the directorate of student affairs and external relations. “Career counselling is an important subject,” he said, “it is not just specific to jobs.” He said students needed to be guided towards opportunities for higher education that would eventually help them get better jobs. Yaqoob said a workshop on CV-writing had been organised recently. Grooming and counselling sessions were held periodically at the BNU, he added.

He said there was a counsellor on the campus to help students make the right choices. “Wehave immense curricular diversity on the campus,” he said while speaking about the disciplines offered at the BNU including visual arts, liberal arts, architecture and economics.

The university’s first career fair started on Friday at its city campus in which around 30 organisations including the WWF, the Tetra Pak, the PEL and the Intel Corp are expected to participate to offer students jobs and internships.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 29^th, 2012.