Choose the Right Career- If you plan to live a highly satisfying work life and enjoy your work, you should choose the right career that will sustain living.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who end up choosing the wrong career and frustrate themselves in the long run. Being in the wrong line of work doesn’t only ruin your professional life, but it harms your personal life as well.
Choose the Right Career
With thousands of occupations to pick from, to increase the odds of career satisfaction, find one that is a good fit for your interests, aptitudes, work-related values, and personality type.
It is also essential that you enjoy the majority of the job duties, the earnings are acceptable, and the job outlook is good. Here’s how to go about making a good match by choosing the right career.
What To Know Before Choosing a Career
Step 1: Learn About Yourself
Your first order of business is to learn as much as possible about yourself. If you think you know all there is to know, the results of a self assessment will be eye-opening. A career development professional, for example, a career counselor or career development facilitator, can help you with this step but don’t be discouraged if you can’t afford to hire one.
Many public libraries offer free career planning services. If your local library doesn’t, the librarian can suggest one that does. He or she can also recommend local agencies that offer career counseling. Instead of meeting with a counselor, there are also free or low-cost career assessments available online.
If you attended college, consider contacting that institution’s career services office. As an alumnus, you may be able to access their services. Some colleges and university career offices offer their services to members of the local community.
In addition, academic programs that train career counselors often have students work with clients at no or a low cost to gain experience.
Step 2: Learn About the Occupations on Your List
The results from your self assessment will include a list of occupations that are a good fit for you based on all the factors it examined, but the quest to find the right career doesn’t end here. While some of the occupations may be nearly perfect for you, others may be all wrong. Even though they are a good match for your personality type, interests, values, and aptitude, they may be unsuitable in other ways. For example, the job duties may not appeal to you, the outlook may be poor, or the required education or training could be more than you are willing to complete.
If after finding out what it would be like to work in an occupation, it still interests you, see what the educational requirements are. If they don’t match your educational goals, cross it off your list. For example, if an advanced degree is required and that is not something you can commit to completing, don’t choose that career. Likewise, if you’ve always dreamed of going to college, don’t pick an occupation for which you only need a high school diploma.
Finally, you will be doing yourself a great disservice if you don’t look at an occupation’s job outlook. Investing time training for a career only to find out there are limited opportunities when you are ready to enter your field of choice will waste your time, effort, and money.
After narrowing down your list to just a few careers, it is time to dig a little deeper. Continue your research by conducting informational interviews with people who work in the occupations you are seriously considering. Getting their perspectives can help you make a more informed decision.
How To Choose The Right Career
1. Know Your Strengths
Every one of us has some strengths – and some weaknesses. The point is to find out what you are really good at. Are you good at telling stories? Do you find it easy to coach other writers? Do you love teaching students? There must be something that you feel passionate about and are good at doing. You need to find out what those skills and strengths are.
Create a list of skills that you have, and then pick the strongest skills from that list. Consult your friends or family for an outer perspective. If you play by your strengths, you’ll enjoy a great professional life.
2. Discover Your Personality Type
You might have heard about Myers-Briggs. It’s an introspective self-report questionnaire which helps you find out what type of personality you have. Different persons have different types of personalities; someone could be an introvert and someone else could be an extrovert. By knowing your personality type, you’ll be able to find out what type of work environment will suit you best.
3. Take a Career Test
If you are confused deciding which career is right for you, you can also go for a career test. Typically, a career test presents you with a set of questions which you need to answer in the given time-frame. A career test is aimed at assessing your skills and strengths and then suggest a career that is a good match. Once you have finished answering all the questions, you’ll be provided with 2-3 career options that suit you best and promise a satisfying life.
On the internet, you’ll find a number of career tests that you can complete within a few minutes. Many of them are free.
4. Seek Advice from Others
No matter where you live, you’ll always have people who are already employed, expert in a particular field or have more professional experience. Feel free to get in touch with these people and talk about your aspirations. Gather information about different occupations and industries. Ask them for advice that you can use for choosing a career that’s best for you.
5. Work as an Intern
Internships provide you with an excellent opportunity to lay the foundation of your career. The experience of actually working in the real world is something that you should never ignore. Working as an intern helps you find out how being in a particular job feels like, whether the work environment is up to your taste and how you get along with people in the workplace.
Internships are also highly recommended for building connections with professionals and gaining work experience that can add extra weight to a resume. An internship can be either paid or unpaid.
You have rightly said, participating as an intern allows you to discover how a certain profession feels, whether the work atmosphere is to your liking, and how you get along with coworkers.