Tips for Choosing a Career

Choosing a career is the most vital decision you will have to make in your entire life. It will dictate on how your life will go. All of us will undergo the same process. Most people had given a lot of time and research before they jumped into a conclusion when choosing a career.

Some people may have been lucky to have a successful career path. But there are also some people who are not satisfied and happy on their chosen path. They still continue to search for other careers that will keep them happy. To avoid the feeling of resentment and regret, here are some tips for students and for all on how to choose a suitable career.

Dream On and Start Young

When you were a kid, your teachers and your relatives keep on asking you the same question over and over again. What do you want to be when you grow up? Starting from your childhood, you already have an idea on which career path you would want to take.

As part of growing, things do change. Your plans and career dreams during your childhood may change with your current interests and hobbies. Change is common and natural. This is a good sign that you are open for wider career options and opportunities.

Research on Job and Career Trending

For junior high school student, you should already have an idea on which careers are suitable for your interests and capabilities. As early as high school, you should make an effort to research on job, career trending and employment statistics. This will give you an idea on the careers that are highly in demand and popular after you have graduated in college.

Take an Aptitude or a Career Assessment Test

Taking an aptitude or a career assessment test can greatly contribute on your decision in finding the right career path. If your aptitude test resulted that you are great in Science or Math, you'll be a great fit in the medical field. If the test resulted that you excel in your gym or art class, opting for the artistic field is probably a good choice.

The results in the aptitude or assessment test may not be as accurate as it sounds. It will just give you an overall idea about your strengths and weaknesses on a certain field based on your interests. You can either follow the suggestion if that is inclined with your interest or look for other options.

Career Counselling

Usually, secondary schools cater career counselling for their graduating high school students. They arrange programs, orientations and counselling for career awareness. Attending to counselling sessions can enlighten your mind and can help you choose a right career path.

Take Certain Risks

If you have undergone a certain career and made you feel dissatisfied and unhappy, the world is still opening its gates for you. You can still venture and try to find another career option. Many people also have encountered this situation. There are some people who change careers every now and then just to find what they are searching for. Be open to risks and to different interests. The world has a lot to offer and there also several things that left undiscovered.

The author writes about giving valuable tips on how to choose a career for students to be guided and help them find the right career in life.

Choosing the Right Career - A Model Based on Psychology and Career Coaching Experience

We've come a long way since the days when men were expected to follow in their fathers' footsteps and women were expected to be homemakers. But with so many opportunities now open to us, and the expectations of friends, parents and society to consider, people can often find it difficult to choose which career would be most suitable for them. Fortunately, research from the fields of positive, personality and work psychology can provide a good framework to guide us in making these difficult, and important, decisions.

A general definition of personality provides a good starting point; "personality is made up of the characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviours that make a person unique". This definition highlights three important points. Firstly, the way that you think, feel and behave is clearly going to have a significant bearing on determining the career that you are most suited to, so understanding your own personality is an important part of any career decision. Secondly, our personalities are very complex. They comprise many different attributes and are often not straightforward or easy to understand. And thirdly, we are all different. Each of us has a unique personality and therefore each of us is suited to a career with a unique set of characteristics. It may seem obvious, but it's worth emphasising that what works for one person may not work for another, however similar they may appear to be. Advice from friends and family can be useful, but ultimately each of us has to choose our own career because no-one else understands our thoughts and feelings as well as we do.

So what is the most helpful way of assessing your personality in the context of choosing a career? There are a number of different theories of personality and various psychological models, which can be helpful in varying degrees, but I have developed a simple model, bringing together the most important of these, that makes it easier for you to choose the career that best matches your personality. My Career Personality Profile model has four elements; Interests (what you enjoy doing), Values (what you find meaningful), Strengths (what you're good at) and Environment (where you feel most comfortable). Taken together, the first two elements, Interests and Values, incorporate Martin Seligman's theory of Authentic Happiness, Tal Ben-Shahar's Happiness Archetype and Kennon Sheldon's research on self-concordant goals to show that we are happiest when doing things that we enjoy while pursuing goals that we find personally meaningful. The third element, Strengths, reflects Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's theory of Flow, in which we are most likely to achieve a state of optimal experience and optimal performance when the difficulty of tasks that we undertake matches our skill level. Another way of viewing this is that we are most likely to feel good about ourselves when we are using our strengths and avoiding using our weaknesses. The fourth element, Environment, recognises that the way that we feel and behave is going to be strongly influenced by our environment, reflecting research by Peter Warr and others into the influence of environmental factors on the happiness we experience at work.

How do you build your Career Personality Profile? When I work with clients, I use the Birkman Method® behavioural assessment and coaching techniques to develop a really deep understanding of the four elements, but it is possible to develop a simple profile for yourself. Basically, you need to reflect on each of the four elements in turn and write down the things that are most important to you. For Interests, what do you enjoy doing, both at work and in your spare time? For Values, what gives meaning to you work, or what do you want to achieve with your life? For Strengths, what are you good at, not just in terms of practical (hard) skills, but also in terms of behavioural (soft) skills, such as relating to people, dealing with change and making decisions? And for Environment, where do you feel most comfortable? What size and type of organisation, what management style, what kind of daily routine? It's best to do this exercise at a time when you are relaxed and unlikely to be disturbed. Also, try to think of examples for each point that you come up with and remember how you felt at the time.

Once you've considered each of the four elements, write down all of the key points on a single sheet of paper to give a profile of your ideal career. You can now use this profile to guide you as you consider different careers. Compare each career that you're considering to your profile and see how well it matches. Which one is the best match? Or if none of them seem to match very well, can you think of something else that would? The closer the match between a possible career and your profile, the more likely you are to both enjoy it and succeed at it. If you feel that you don't know enough about a possible career to make a meaningful comparison, then you need to further research that career to find out more about it.

I hope that gives you a good idea of the best way to approach career choices. The reality for many people is a lot more complex than this simple illustration would suggest, but my experience as a career coach has shown it to be an extremely effective way of helping people to focus on the right things. Obviously, when I work with clients I go into great depth and help clients to understand aspects of their personality that are not already clear to them, but the overall approach is exactly the same. The most important thing to remember, is that you need to start by understanding yourself. If you don't do this, then you're unlikely to choose the right career.

I am Dr Roger Todd, co-founder of The Right Career, a career consultancy based in London, UK. We specialise in using personality profiling and career coaching techniques to help clients identify the career that will work best for them. Sign up for our free email course at http://therightcareer.co.uk for a more detailed step-by-step guide to Choosing the Right Career.

A Guide on Choosing a Career

Choosing a career can be an easy and natural decision for some, a long and arduous process for others. Finding the right career for you is crucial for your future success and personal development. Here are some ways for you to narrow down your career choices.

Know Yourself

If you haven't sat down and given time to evaluate what your strengths and weaknesses are, it's time to start right now. Sit down and list down your strengths, weaknesses, skills and skills you would like to learn. Do you prefer working alone or working with others? Whose career paths have you greatly admired and would like to emulate?

Talk to your family and friends, the people who know you best, and ask what career they think suits you the most. Their different perspectives can give you a wider insight on what your strengths and weaknesses are. Compare the list of qualities you came up with and that other people came up with and find the common points.

Consider Your Goals

You should also consider what your long-term goals are, what you would like to achieve outside career (such as further education, marriage or family). Is it okay for you to travel? What working hours are acceptable? Are you willing to move for your job? Are you willing to start small and work your way up? These questions will invariably pop up in your search for your career, and the sooner you figure what is acceptable, the better.

Research

Go online and learn more about the careers that have interested you. Use your social networks to learn more about the different people from different fields, and learn about what they like about their careers, and you can advance in that career. The more you understand how your career works from both the technical and personal point of view, the more informed you are of your decision in choosing a career.

Explore Different Careers

You don't have to jump from one unrelated job to the next to explore different careers. Take varied part-time jobs during vacations. Intern or volunteer at organizations that interest you. If you're already working, you can take classes and attend seminars in your spare time. Taking time to explore will help beef up your experience and make you experience a certain field firsthand, making it easier for you to decide whether a particular career is made for you.

Learn More Skills

There are specific skills for specific careers, but there is such a thing as a universal skill. Writing skills, public relations, public speaking, critical and analytical thinking are all plus points in any career in any field. Keeping up with current events is also a skill that many people tend to neglect. The more skills you have, the easier it is for you to transfer to another career, if you indeed will have to transfer.

Look at Your Hobbies

Your ideal career may be just sitting right under your nose. Many careers and entrepreneurial opportunities sprung up from people's hobbies. It can be anything from making doll's clothes, jewelry or even blogging; if you look a little closely, there may be a career waiting for you that will combine your passion for your hobby as well as making something more out of it.

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Choosing Career Finder Tools - Tips To Find The Right Career

Choosing a career is a mighty task. Pre-determining the career path is a good solution. For people with long-term goals in life, this might be an easy process. For others it requires from them a lot of assessment, research and reflection. Websites which offer great help in finding careers, thus, becomes a helpful tool to them. The research tool can help them to assess themselves to the fullest by considering things like occupation, starting salary, duties and a lot more. Knowing the potential careers is the first step pf defining a career path.

Each website can have its own way of career finder feature. On a few sites, a counselor who can answer individual questions posted by students becomes helpful. Answers related to occupation and the personality of the person could be found. There could be small tests which are easy to write and can show the results immediately telling the person which profession would suit him or her best. Though it might not be the final verdict, it gives the person an idea or an outlook of the possible careers he could pursue. Choosing a career from there would be left to the individual.

Another kind of career finder is the one which asks the individual about the specific profession or just the name of the industry. The facility of a keyword search could help a few who aren't conclusive of their search. There are websites which can give information on careers in specific industries as well. Career finders could even describe careers in the field if legal, medical or educational. This type of a career finder will mostly be used by people who have decided what field to take up but don't know what particular career would suit them.

Career finder could be an imperative means of finding the right path to work. When they are used in tandem with different career finding tools, it could give them a clear picture. Choosing a career is no easy thing and hence one has to be careful with it. Choosing a career carefully would mean a lot as it might tend to have adverse effects when it isn't done properly. It can be a major set-back physically and emotionally if chosen in a hurry.

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