Who Offers Career Guidance?

Obtaining career guidance can be a benefit at various stages in your professional life. At times, job advice can help you decide between two vastly different career paths, while at other times it will help you plan for advancement within your existing field. Regardless of what point you’re at in your career, knowing where you can receive professional guidance is useful.

Career Guidance from Friends

Friends and family are the primary source of career guidance for most people. Unfortunately, this is good taken in a general or situational context, but detailed career path advice is only relevant if you share a career field. If you plan to seek job advice from someone outside your industry, look to them when:

• You’re unsure how to handle conflicts with coworkers
• You want basic interview or negotiation tips
• You want career guidance as to whether a frustration is common outside your line of work.

Career Guidance from Mentors

Looking to people within your industry is a valuable source of career guidance. Mentors already understand the specifics of your job and may have a general idea of how the politics of your company work, even when they work elsewhere. An added benefit of obtaining job advice from someone you trust within the company is that if he or she has already advanced to a higher position than you, they can tell you what it took to get the promotion.

Another reason to look for career guidance from people within your industry is that they speak the jargon unique to your line of work. Instead of spending time explaining what you mean to an outsider, you can devote more time to the heart of the issue. By developing a network outside your company, you may be in an advantageous position when there’s an opening in one of their companies.

Career Guidance from Professionals

Working with career counselors and executive placement firms is another irreplaceable source of career guidance, especially when you must make a major career decision. Their experience lies across companies, industries and experience levels, qualifying your career counselor to offer job advice you can’t get from anyone else. For instance, your friends and colleagues may have personal opinions about whether you should pursue an advanced degree in engineering or accounting, but an employment professional can also tell you what salary each position commands and which are in the highest demand.