Career awareness is the ability to understand the types of jobs available to you and what it would take to be successful in a certain profession. The process involves shaping a career path by determining objectives and developing strategies that will achieve them. Minani Olivier, a teacher and IT expert, is of the view that career planning plays a crucial role in determining an individual’s career journey, adding that it is a tool that can help them decide on which direction he or she desires to take. Consequently, he says, this aspect possesses the ability to equip a person with the required know-how and skills they will require on their journey and how to achieve them. “Through career awareness, a person— whether an employee or student—is able to choose their path wisely not only according to their interest but according to their abilities too. This is possible because with this type of awareness, you also get a chance to do a self-assessment which assists you in understanding your strengths and weaknesses and consequently having the ability to make the right choices,” Minani adds. Author Bharat Sharma observes that accessing career awareness helps you in finding ways to excel in your chosen career. He notes that in a career awareness programme, you are able to choose the best career for you. And after that, you get knowledge about how you can excel in that career so you are able to achieve success in your profession. The writer adds that by doing a proper career awareness programme you can make your future successful and full of happiness. Sharma also highlights that in exploring various careers, career awareness helps you in discovering various career options that help in finding the best career from various career options available to you. After exploring various career options based on your interest, you are able to find the best one that suits you the most so you can able to put your 100 per cent into making you successful in that career. Career awareness helps you in setting up goals that make you do well in your career and life altogether. This strategy helps you by guiding you to the ways on how to achieve your goals, he writes. Cherish Nkurunziza, a teacher at Kigali City School, is of the view that an employee who has awareness regarding their career, is bound to have the capacity to be ultimately responsible for the development of their own career. This means that this person will have clarity when making career decisions such as accepting a particular job offer, whether to join, leave or remain in an organisation, whether to accept specific occupational assignments, among others. Anyone who wants to be successful in their career path needs to have the ability to make strategies that will enable them to accomplish their career goals, says Nkurunziza, adding, “This is only possible for those who have awareness.”
