Guidelines for Choosing a Career Path
While you are young and studying for your future career, you tend to believe in the old myth that the harder you work, the better career you would have. Unfortunately, your faith in the myth will evaporate as soon as you leave college or university and enter the real life, trying to find a job for you. And there is no place of blaming educational establishments – they do what they have to, inspiring, motivating and educating students. But the thought that most student have – “I don’t know what to do with my life” can be really depressing.
In the recent years the situation has become more accurate than before, and even though it seems there is a hope for changes, there are still millions of young people in the country that are unemployed. Most of them are well-educated, but lost and have no clue of what they want to do in their lives.
Here are some tips for you to follow in order to get out of despair and find your way to employment.
- Figure out what you definitely do not want to do. It is important thing to do during your job search, as applying for job that you will never enjoy, and is a true wasting of your time and your professionalism, as long as you are looking for fulfilling career for you. The list of things you hate to do as a job should be your pre-screen when choosing career – thus, if you hate service, you should immediately discount all the jobs having service aspect in the list of job offers, and save time for something more decent for you.
- There is no database about all the careers consistent in your existence, so make a research. In our childhood we all are taught about the stock roles of the society, like doctor, nurse, firefighter or veterinarian. Of course, you can become one of them, but in the more likely event you are not, and you should educate yourself in the today’s job market. It is changing every day, and today you can opt for careers that didn’t exist twenty years ago. Remember that you may not make the right career choice if you are not familiar with the market.
Hopefully, there are a lot of sources where you can find information you need, especially online – there are plenty of websites like job boards and posting sites where you will get an idea of what jobs are in the highest demand in today’s market. This may seem to be useless waste of your time, but in fact every job option you reject takes you closer to the work of your dreams.
- Ask yourself some questions to define what you really enjoy doing – don’t keep it in mind, take a pen and a paper and make a list of main points. You will be surprised of how many things you should think about. Here are some questions for you to start with:
a) What do you enjoy?
b) What things are you passionate about?
c) What inspires you?
d) What kind of work activities engage you the most? (If you don’t have any experience use your best guess)
e) What are you really good at?
f) What kind of work pattern do you want?
g) What level of salary do you want to start out on? What is the minimum you need to get by?
h) Given your experience what level can you expect to begin at?
i) Are you in a position to enter education or training if it will be needed?
j) How far are you willing to travel? What opportunities are likely to exist in this range? Can you relocate?
k) What is your absolute dream job? (For example, you may not be able to become an ‘academy award winning actress’ but do not dismiss the dream as frivolous – use it to identify what things you crave in a role and decide how these could be applied to a more realistic career- working in broadcasting for instance.)
Now use the answers to these questions to define the roles that may fit in your needs and desires. Don’t wait for the answer to come up to you immediately – you will have to careful considerations.
4. Don’t forget about your hobbies and don’t think they have no relevance to the real career perspectives. It may seem pretty obvious to you, but looking closer at the things you do in your free time can give you a clue of what kind of career you want to obtain. For example, if you like cooking or baking, you can consider working as chef, nutritionist, critic, or caterer. Those loving to make photos can become a professional photographer, working for a newspaper, or weddings, or combine all types of photography. Those who prefer writing in their free time can think about such professions like novelist, journalist, blogger, editor, publisher, technical writer, critic; and people loving gardeners can try becoming floral designer or florist.
5. Keep an open mind – there is the chance that the perfect career can be something that you’ve never tried before. Try different roles, and never be afraid of learning something new.
Of course, these are only a couple of tips for you, and there are plenty more. Search for new information, look through classifieds from time to time and be open – and you will finally get what you need, sooner or later.