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CHALLENGES IN CAREER PLANNING IN TODAY’S WORLD

Ali was the only son of his parents. His father is a clerk and mother is a housewife. He has two younger sisters. Ali was a brilliant and intelligent student and would always take part in extra co-curricular activities. He passed his 10th grade with 90% so his parents wanted him to take up MBBS as his career. In his 12th grade he passed out with flying colors. Ali’s father saved money for his studies as he always wants to make him doctor. One day Ali’s father became the victim of bombast and he died so he left his studies and become the earner of his family to support them. A day came when Ali’s all friends were become a doctor but he was just a clerk. Ali starts avoiding his friend and detached with his social life. He remains depressed in his life because of his unsuccessful career.

Career means specific occupation in which people can train themselves to earn for healthy life. To live a sound life, every individual needs to plan his/her career. Career planning facilitates helps individuals in formulating their future and guides them in choosing better professions for them. Career planning helps us to analyze our own self and to identify our own strengths and weaknesses. In this fast moving world, critical career planning helps to take proper decision. As challenges and competition is the part of today’s society. The previous generation was not so advanced as there were limited inventions and technology and people didn’t have to face as many challenges as they are facing now. Moreover, the upcoming century is totally based on challenges and the era will be meritocratic. Career planning is an important aspect of one’s life as it provides opportunity for an individual to identify challenges in successful career planning and impact of futile career in future life.

In Pakistan, students start career planning after intermediate studies. However, it should be started after secondary school studies. One of the biggest challenges for today’s world is to accomplish the desire goal. Therefore, besides having a professional degree, now days companies demand for talented professionals having expertise and extra skills and updated knowledge of their field. However, in past, employers were satisfied with just high qualified degrees. Moreover, bribes are ineffective now and back hinders are not appreciated. People get their jobs according to their knowledge and intellectual level. Furthermore, Competition among competitors is going very high day by day for one particular job. In addition, employer fills two vacancies with one employee and expects him to perform the work of two people with 100% efficiency.

Every individual needs to plan his/her career as it is the demand of today’s world. Challenges have become the parts of individual’s life. Inflation has now become an unanswered issue in Pakistan and globally. The middle class becomes poor and the poor becomes poorer. According to K. K et.al “Inflation or persistence rising prices are major problem in today’s world. Because of many reason, first, the rate of inflation these years are much high than experiences earlier periods. Second, inflation in the year’s co exists with high rate of unemployment, which is a new phenomenon and made it difficult to control inflation.” Inflation & expensive education also affects one’s career planning. An individual plans their career but due to said factors it becomes unfulfilled. People start doing low incomes jobs to overcome their family needs. In the third world countries, individual wants to support their families and become the earner for their family during graduation studies. Therefore, they start doing lower income jobs such as clerk etc and scarify their careers which they want to adopt. Due to unemployment now a day, people fulfill their basic necessities with constraints so it would be difficult for them to make their child doctor or an engineer. Moreover, terrorism is another factor which is spoiling student’s career planning. Pakistan is also affected by terrorism including suicide bombing, as a result most of earning member of the families becomes victim of these blasts. Therefore, the victim’s children are the main depriver of fulfilling their career planning. As terrorism erodes the sense of security and the safety, this erosion of security is at both the individual and community level. Employers of multinational companies are not investing their money in Pakistan because of terrorism. Moreover, people not to do business in Pakistan and they are closing their companies. This indirectly affects people’s economy and their career planning.

If a person fails to get their desire career, they end up with different health problems and socials problems. It has been observed that people with unsuccessful career planning had lower levels of psychological well being, low self esteem, anxiety, depression, frustration; dissatisfaction with ones presents life, experienced stains, hopelessness regarding the future and other negative emotional states. Another impact of unsuccessful career on people is on their social life. People decreases contact with their family and friends, have poor work relations, avoid others and others also avoid them because of their cranky behavior. They also don’t involve themselves in their hobbies and other leisure activities. Furthermore, these kinds of people also suffer from physical problem like they may become physically inefficient, clumsy, and are more vulnerable to get infectious illness.

In conclusion, the above mentioned problems and challenges being faced by individual in today’s world might remain same or it could be more drastic in coming years with questionable solutions. Every individual face many challenges during their life but it does not mean that he/she forget his/her goals and plans. Everyone should have clear and achievable goals in their mind and the way to accomplish them. Pre planning helps us to know which kind of career we have to choose according to our need and capabilities. A person, who is not satisfied with his / her own life, will not be able to support his own and his family’s demand as well. In above mentioned story, Ali has goal for his future but he became unsuccessful in his life. If he plans critically to accomplishment of his target, he will achieve his desire profession. I would like to recommend Pakistani government to take initiatives. Government should support students financially for their higher studies by giving the scholarships, Qarz-e-Hasna and loans in order to continue their studies. Moreover, Pakistani government should give space to investors for investing in Pakistan. So people get jobs according to their ability. In a nut shell, to live a successful life in today’s world, everyone needs to design their life so they can recognize the affecting factors and their undesired impact in their own life.


“Good plans shape good decisions. That's why good planning helps to make elusive dreams come true”

Lester R. Bittel, the Nine Master Keys of Management
 

Hamida Jalal
AKUH, Karachi.