“What do I want to do for the rest of my life?” how many of you are trying to answer this question right now? I guess all of you, right!!
As a beginner or college student, not only you even all of us asked this question of ourselves at least once in our career! If you’re one of us and you’re not sure how to get the right career path, figuring out your career would be a good first step.
When there are hundreds, if not thousands, of viable professional paths, how do you pick one? "I can do anything," you could think, but then you might think, "How will I ever be able to decide?" Of course, it's a difficult choice, but it's one you should consider carefully.
Your future is heavily influenced by your profession. Your character, personal fulfillment, lifestyle, money, family, and retirement will all be shaped by it. This article will provide you with everything you need to know when considering what job is right for you. It will help you identify your strengths and weaknesses so that you can choose a career that suits your skillset.
Introduction
A career plan is a strategy you'll construct over time to manage your learning and growth in the workplace. Its basic stages are designed to help you visualize the activities you'll need to take to attain your professional objectives and how to put them into action.
Welcome to our era's new normal: achieving success doing whatever the heck you want. Finally, at this stage of life; you are totally responsible for your professional choice. Choosing a career path can be a difficult decision. There are many factors to take into consideration, such as the skill set required, the salary, and the work-life balance.
To begin, consider the amount of time we spend working. Approximately 71% of the year is spent on the work. This amounts to around 31.5 years out of the 45 years most of us work from the start of our professions until retirement. It is impossible to overstate the importance of choosing a profession that we enjoy.
A recent survey by an online job-counseling portal showed that the majority of Indian students are only aware of seven career options, despite the fact that India offers 250 career alternatives, the bulk of which are fresh and in demand, this is the main reason behind unemployment crisis in India.
Your temperament is the mental counterpart of your physical features when it comes to your profession. You could be gregarious, numbers-oriented, and practical. You might be an introvert who is also a thinker and a designer.
What you like and what you can accomplish well will be influenced by your attitude. An introvert would not want to be a salesman, and an adventurous person would find a monotonous desk job uninteresting.
With this in mind, you may adopt a methodical approach, beginning with professions that match your personality and narrowing them down based on your preferences, capabilities, and perspective.
If you’re feeling stuck, unsure, or confused, don’t worry. Here are a few steps you can take toward discovering the career that will truly satisfy you.
Ask yourself a few questions before jumping into a career path:
Interests, Values & Personality Traits
What are my interests?
What are my hobbies?
Do I prefer investing time indoors or outdoors?
Do I enjoy working with people, animals, data, or books?
What activities would I miss the most if I could no longer do them?
What is my personality?
Are you a leader or a follower?
Do you prefer to work alone or in a group?
Do you prefer to cooperate or compete with others?
Do you enjoy helping others or prefer to empower them to do things themselves?
Are you a thinker who focuses on ideas or are you a doer who takes action?
Are you a creative and artistic person or do you thrive with structure and routine?
What are my skills?
Remember that talents can be acquired and new abilities obtained at any age, so don't let a lack of skills keep you from pursuing a certain job route. Allow your present abilities to lead you. The next hurdle will be determining whether or not you require more skill improvement.
What are my talents and strengths?
Make a list of everything you're excellent at if you don't know what your abilities and strengths are. Family members, friends, instructors, bosses, and mentors may all assist you in compiling this list of prospective occupations.
After asking these questions to yourself, match your answers with jobs to pick out things the job entails that align with your preferences. So, don’t just look at the job title but look into the job description.
Make a list of all your choices, whether they are actual job openings, educational chances, or career routes. You can filter out what isn't quite right and restrict your goals after you have things written down. Job profiles might lead you to less prominent career pathways where your talents and qualifications can be relevant.
Following are some examples:
You like partying — event organizer, event management, community manager and front-line sales may be a fit because you like interacting with people.
You like writing or researching — technical content writer, researcher, data analyst, social media marketing and etc.
You like to teach people — a teacher would be an obvious choice but managers also need to teach (or coach) people as well.
If you like sports — a physiotherapist/sports therapist, personal trainer and PE teacher can be a good fit.
You like new innovations- opt for new technologies, explore them pursue a career according to your interests.
Choose the role that most interests you from your list of work possibilities and one or two backup options in case you are unable to pursue your initial pick.
Before jumping to a conclusion, go through a few questions:
How competitive is this career path?
Is the job realistic in terms of salary?
Your career plan should include how you'll achieve where you want to go, what activities you'll require to do, and when, and be divided into short, medium, and long-term objectives.
Explore answers to these questions:
- Check your personality and match it with a range of jobs.
- Group up and narrow down the jobs you like (or don’t hate).
- Filter the jobs by the skills you have or are willing to acquire.
- De-prioritize those jobs from your target list if they are at risk in the future.
- Take action to prepare yourself for landing your preferred jobs.
Here are some helpful hints for this exercise:
Don't let your impression or confirmation bias deceive you. If you believe you'll enjoy a career, make sure to look into the bad aspects of it, and vice versa.
Don't restrict yourself to tasks that you can start working on right away. This is about what you want to do in the future, and it might be short or long term.
You will "create time to do it" if you discover a profession that is also your passion! That'll most likely be your first decision, so keep that in mind.
You should be able to eliminate half of your options at the end of this exercise.
Now that you've made a list of professions that interest you and match your natural abilities, you can figure out how to get qualified for them.
Why should you take a moment now to consider your job options? If you don't, you risk two things:
Because of technology advancements, demographic shifts, and social-economic changes, the labor market is fast evolving. There's no assurance that your current position will be available in a few years.
Because of the ease and speed with which information can be acquired, competition for excellent positions grows every year, resulting in an exponential increase in the number of high-skill people. If you don't continuously improve your abilities and knowledge, you risk slipping behind the competition.
Some crisp points for newbies:
Plan ahead: Don't put off planning your career till the last few months of your study. Start exploring career options from the first year onwards. Start thinking about what you want from a job as you progress through education. Are you looking for a mental challenge? Do you wish to be independent? Do you desire consistency? Prepare to act as you enter your last year. To avoid missing out on graduate career opportunities, stay mindful of early deadlines.
Document your skills: Capturing your capabilities will assist you to figure out what you're skilled at and what job options would best suit your ability.
Research your career options: Your institution will provide you with several learning opportunities and networking activities to assist you in exploring various career options. Keep up to speed by reading newsletters and seeing what events your campus career center has to offer.
Get involved: Build networks with your seniors, join clubs, and societies and try out new things.
Get your CV/Resume ready
Work while studying: An internship may help you get experience, network, enhance your language abilities, and earn money.
Conclusion
Finding your ideal job won't happen overnight, and finding the appropriate path for you may take some time. Throughout your career, re-evaluate and assess your mission and targets, and don't feel bound by them - the framework of a career plan should enable you clearly lay out the path to attempting something new.
Choice Wisely!!
What would be your dream job? Are you exploring it already? I'd appreciate hearing from you. Let's talk about your answers in the comments section below!
