Struggling To Choose A Career Path?

10.03.2022

With thousands of options to choose from, how can you find the career that’s right for you? You’ll probably have some ideas in your head, and also some passions you really want to follow. Arguably, choosing your career will be one of the most important decisions you make in your life. No one wants to stick a career which doesn’t inspire or excite them. If you follow our steps below, you’ll increase your chances of making the right career decision.

1. Self-assessment: Before choosing a career, you need to learn about and fully understand yourself. Your skills, interests, values and aptitudes, in combination with your personality, make some occupations a better fit than others. You can try taking online career tests and using self-assessment tools to gather information about yourself, or you can consider seeing a careers counselor.
2. Make a list: After using these tools, taking the tests, or working with a counselor, you should have a few lists of occupations which would be a good fit for you. To keep yourself organized, you need to combine them into a ‘master list’. Choose the ones that really appeal to you and cross out the others. Eventually you’ll have created a shortlist from your master list.
3. Exploring: By this stage you will probably still have 10-20 options in your list. You should start to explore them in more detail to garner some basic information about them. Use lots of resources to check the qualifications, trainings and licensing requirements needed for each career path.
4. Narrow down your list: Maybe all of the jobs in your list are really appealing, but after doing your research on the requirements for each one, we guess you’ve probably crossed out some of them. Consider these questions to narrow down your list even further; what would a typical day look like in this job? What would be the minimum and maximum salary I could get? Are there ample opportunities for training and growth? Talk to a current employee working in the field, or research online to find some answers.
5. Find and apply for jobs: Finally, the job hunting can start! After all the research you’ve conducted you are finally ready to make your choice. You have lots of different options when it comes to finding and applying for positions: research and apply from various career websites, use Linkedin, or send your updated resume by email or even in-person to the HR departments at companies you want to work with.
6. Keep yourself up-to-date: It always takes time to adjusting your new career. Keep your eye on the ball and pay attention to every part of your new job to get a good grasp on things. You should keep growing, learning and updating yourself with new skills to help you keep improving your career and your life.
7. Write a career action plan: You can view this as your road map along your career journey. Write down your career goals, and all the steps you’ll need to take to achieve them. It’s a great idea to include some anticipated barriers you could face, and how to overcome them.

This may sound like a lot of work; that’s because it is! But choosing the right career for you takes time. Once you have worked out what you really want to do, it’s much easier to go down the right path. Taking these steps will clear your head and save you from struggles later on. Share our article to help friends who are still deciding, and don’t forget to follow our social media pages.