There are plenty of career options out there to choose from. Before choosing the right career you need to access your strengths, skills, and interests. It is good to do a job that you enjoy and that will keep you satisfied. Here are tips to help you make a career choice:
Do a Self-Assessment
You need to learn a lot about yourself before you choose the right career. Learn about your values, interests, skills, personality type, and aptitude. Values are the things that are important to you like achievements and status. Interests include the things that you enjoy doing without putting in so much effort. Aptitude is the activities you are good at such as writing, teaching, they might be natural skills or acquired through training.
Your personality might be either extroversion or introversion. Experts believe that individuals with particular personality types are suited better in specific occupations. For example, an introvert would not do well in a career that requires him or her to be around people every time.
Know Your Goals
Identify your long and short-term goals, this will help you make an informed decision. Long-term goals take about 3-5 years to reach while short-term goals can take six months to three years. For example, you would want to complete your education in two years, which is a short-term goal.
Other short-term goals include; internships, applying to college, or an apprenticeship. Create a spreadsheet of the goals you want to achieve and a date on which you’d like to achieve them. Make sure your goals are realistic and achievable.
Create a List of Top Career Choices
As you keep an open mind, choose careers you are interested in. Aim to choose careers that match your qualifications rather than those you need to build qualifications over time. Create a list of your top career choices to see if they match your qualifications and skills. Look for creating that appear on multiple lists first, copy them on a blank page.
Find out more about the careers you don’t know much, you might learn something interesting. Narrow your list down to 10-20 options and get the basic information about each career on your list. Eliminate the careers that have weak job outlooks and in the end, you should end up with 2-5 career choices.
Conduct Informational Interviews
When you finally have few career choices on your list, then it’s time to conduct informational interviews. This includes doing more research and arranging to meet the people who work in those occupations. They will help provide firsthand information about the careers you are interested in.
Informational interviews provide an opportunity to ask questions about specific careers. Ask friends and relatives if they know anyone who works in your targeted career. After the interview, don’t forget to express gratitude in person or send an email to the interviewee.
