Living in a constantly developing world, it’s often confusing to pick a line of work that can pay well and is manageable at the same time. Highly paying jobs can sometimes be perfect for certain individuals that possess the required skill set. On the other hand, they can also be a nightmare for those that don’t. Finding the right career is an essential part of professional life which leads the way in better education and enhancement of your skills accordingly.
Choosing the right career starts with finding the purpose and visualizing yourself in the particular field. Achieving your professional milestones often takes years as there are various wrong decisions, detours, and u-turns. Moreover, planning your career can help you avoid impulsive decisions when in need of money, and also allows you to develop the required skills for the right purpose. Then there are also those times when you ask yourself “Am I in the right career?” Defining a career path helps you establish daily, monthly, and yearly goals.
Here’s how to choose the right career:
Set Right Career Goals
There are various aspects to consider before selecting a career. To begin with, self-analysis is a must and can be done by asking yourself a few questions like the purpose, the level of interest you have in a particular field, and whether the skills you possess are sufficient for it. You should also reconsider the basic questions you were asked in school, like what are your future goals and what do you want to become when you grow older.
Additionally, you need to determine your core values and whether they align with the nature of work in the particular field you have in mind. Certain jobs require specialization in technical/advanced subjects and must be thought about carefully before stepping into. On the contrary, management positions require different skills to be developed such as multi-tasking. Given the vast variety of jobs and long list of careers that today’s world offers, the steps taken to select the right career must be implemented right from the beginning. Children in schools, especially after a certain age when they can think about their future, must be made aware of the challenges and requirements in different careers.
College students must understand their aptitude, their strengths, and weaknesses. Finding answers to these questions can help determine the right certification, specialization, and ultimately the right career. Other aspects include your reservations, priorities, liking or disliking for the potential job. Keeping a balance between personal and professional goals plays a significant role in overall satisfaction. This balance is often tough to achieve, but pre-defined variables such as the generalized working hours in a particular job.
Think Long Term
After identifying and narrowing down your career options, you need to set the right career goals and plan ahead. The plan must be for 10-20 years since your chosen career should ideally be a permanent one. It is easier to establish these long-term plans according to the trends and examples of successful people in your potential field.
Determine where people reach after working 10 years in a specific niche, and you will be able to understand the growth pattern in terms of salary. Listening to motivational speakers does provide us vision and helps us rise, but those speeches are generic and don’t focus on a specific career. Of course, they are right when they quote Thomas Edison and say “there is no substitute to hard work”.
Just like every other small or great task, you may end up making wrong decisions when looking for the right career for you. However, in this particular scenario, you must realize your mistake faster. Otherwise, you might end up working 2-3 years in a field that doesn’t interest you, and when you have finally had enough, you will have to start all over again. Additionally, thinking ahead also allows you to set bigger goals and motivates you to work hard accordingly.
Decide What You’re Comfortable With
According to research, there are 16 different personality types that are identified based on career choices, traits, and compatibility with others. The way you react to certain situations like pressure at work, urgent meetings, and how your personal life problems can affect your work are some of the key aspects to keep in mind.
Based on your personality type, you will naturally find an inclination towards a particular niche where the requirements match your strengths. You can take various tests to know your personality type, as this helps make the right career choices. Some of these tests include common careers for a certain personality type. For instance, people with aggressive nature and impulsive reactions obviously shouldn’t opt to become surgeons.
Analyze Past Experience
In case you have worked on some projects before, you can get guidance from your own experience. The way you felt about the job, the work environment, timings, or your salary can all help make the right career choice this time. Job satisfaction is more important than you think.
If you land a job that doesn’t interest you, you might temporarily get motivated because of the salary, or because you simply couldn’t find anything better, but in the long run, it can become difficult.
Moreover, your focus and skill in a particular field are greatly enhanced when the job is something you love to do. If your experience includes a job that not only paid well but also made you happy, it might be a good idea to consider that career again.
Look For The Right Career Ideas
After a successful analysis of the above-mentioned aspects, it’s essential to note down your skills, interests, and what you feel you can do best. Your degrees, certifications, diplomas can help you identify a specific niche where you can truly shine.
In addition to these, your technical expertise, communication skills, and management skills also hold significance. To better understand where you stand, it’s often a good idea to take regular feedback from your boss, colleagues, and seniors. Once you have a clear picture in front of you, it will be easier to look for career ideas.
Define Your Core Values
Based on your core values, you can improve your career choice by identifying what suits you best. Deciding which field you can passionately work in, and also listing down attributes that you feel should be present in a particular firm and your potential colleagues.
Apart from this, you must also decide which post you can begin with and where you wish to reach after a given period of time. Your search for the right career should then be streamlined and focused on achieving the defined goals. For instance, some fields require special training or prerequisite work, and stepping into such a line of work unknowingly can bring disappointments.
What Fulfills Your Salary Needs?
One of the most significant aspects other than job satisfaction is salary. We all want to go for the highly-paying jobs and look for opportunities that provide shortcuts to earn more in less time. Every niche has its own division of salaries, and it varies from company to company and based on location as well.
It often happens that people start working with high hopes of increments at fixed time intervals, but this is a variable aspect in every different niche. Jobs like call-center representatives, for example, can only pay static amounts, with very few chances of increment. Although they are commission-based in some cases, fulfilling your needs can be tough. Having this information can help you decide the starting salary and whether it is sufficient considering your needs.
Identify Your Interests
As indicated earlier, finding the right career based on your interest will make work much more favorable for you. Different interests can help boost your performance in different careers, so it’s crucial to identify them. Believe it or not, your past activities and hobbies can play an important role in helping you choose the right career.
People consider this as an unprofessional approach, but these lists of interests really do filter out the jobs you will not be suitable for. For instance, if you’re someone who likes solving complex problems, you should make a career in machine learning or artificial intelligence.
Compare Your Education With Job Requirements
Everyone has seen, and in many cases, been disappointed by long lists of requirements for jobs. Every firm including new startups and established companies require work experience. But the most basic requirement that can never be overlooked is education. Your qualifications are the first deciding factor for the HR manager in any company, so you must understand whether you are going to be eligible for jobs in a specific niche.
Educational requirements vary from place to place, with some companies giving priority to those that have additional certifications, diplomas apart from a bachelor’s degree. Similarly, in some scenarios, a master’s degree is mandatory. For these reasons, an analysis of your qualifications and a comparison with the job market is essential in finding the right career.
Conclusion
To sum it up, establishing a portfolio and carrying out self-analysis are two aspects that go hand in hand when choosing the right career for you. While it is important to set high standards and dream big, you cannot blindly step into any field without knowing whether you will be able to handle the required tasks.
Moreover, there is no career that can pay you a high salary right from the start, and therefore it’s inevitable that you will have to start from the lowest basic salary. Instead of going into short-term projects that provide a good salary for a limited time, it’s better to establish your ground in the right career and gradually work your way to success.
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