How to Choose a Career - A Proven Method for Finding a Job You Will Love

Fourth, become a stellar employee. Learn the ho-hum basic skills, particularly soft skills, and build on these skills. Knowing how to input data or find out information is not the same as using it appropriately to make the best decisions and learn from your mistakes [when working towards a fulfilling career]. Self-awareness is of utmost importance in deciding which career is right.

Here are top considerations to build self-awareness that allow you to home in on — he right career options:. First off, I ask about their employment history. Without being aware of it, many professionals naturally etch out a career path for themselves as they work up the ranks in their given profession. For example, a Junior Designer who became a Graphic Designer who then ended up managing other designers should very obviously pursue a career in design management.

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Sometimes individuals have trouble seeing the forest instead of all of the individual trees. By reviewing their career history you may identify a pattern that will point the applicant in the right direction. Simply asking a handful of your most close friends or even family, what they think you excel at, may result in at least getting pointed in the right direction.

Asking people who know you best is the most surefire way to get an outside perspective on what you excel at but may not realize you excel at. In summary, by either consulting people who know you well, or by analyzing your career history for trends and patterns, most applicants should at least get a solid idea of what industry they should be working in and in what capacity. As an executive coach, I sometimes work with professionals who have been successful in their careers but want to pivot to a new career. Finding a career is a personal process. Develop a list of everything you enjoy doing professionally and personally, and have enjoyed in the past, examine themes then dive into some non-box research.

Talk with people in fields that interest you — but also talk with people in fields outside of your areas of interest. This is a group of people you can discuss career issues with, and bounce ideas off. Ideally, your board should be diverse in terms of profession, age, sex, race, stage of career etc. If you have a mentor, coach, and connector, all the better.

Test out career possibilities. Take a class or talk to people in that career. Test out skills related to that career in your workplace or volunteer organizations such as professional or service organizations. For example, an attorney interested in event planning might help plan an event within their company or volunteer organization. Everything is connected — who you are, your life, your well-being is reflected in your professional self. Remaining resilient helps make sound decisions, think clearly, creatively and maintain the persistence needed to find a career.

Step back from this decision at times and engage in healthy, enjoyable activities to keep your mind conditioned. Even as we do grow up, we tend to pursue a particular programme of study expecting to follow a linear path towards our chosen Career. Others — in fact, I would argue most of us — are more likely to end up in a particular career quite accidentally.

We may get a first job after our studies because of a personal connection or a chance encounter, or we often follow some kind of expected path more or less on autopilot. Our careers will then tend to evolve quite organically over time as we progress to different roles, make various lateral moves, get promoted, and so on.

How to find the answer to ‘What career is right for me?’

Another way of looking at this is: In answering this question, strip away what your parents believe, what your teachers told you, what your friends and colleagues are doing. For example, is it important to be able to have a flexible work arrangement so that you can spend time with your young family? Do you want to be able to work independently, or express your creativity freely?

Is it a dream of yours to travel extensively, either with work or between jobs? Think beyond the obvious skills that are specific to your current role and consider broader skills that can be transferred to different situations. For example, you may have experience in managing complex projects under tight deadlines or in managing social media networks like Facebook and Twitter. This question, I believe, is one that gets to the very heart of why many of us feel unfulfilled in our jobs. My own choice to leave my full-time job three years ago was related to this question, as I asked myself: So what do you care about?

You might be passionate about making life easier for families with better products in the home, bringing innovation to a traditional industry, building a community of like-minded people; or you might care about promoting music and art, or cultivating beauty and fashion. The point is that this is a very personal choice, and you should make it without any sense of guilt, or comparing to what other people are doing. And yet they will often lean towards making a commercial decision as to the choice that will generate the biggest income rather than the one that best fits their own values and preferences.

Which industries might you be best suited for, which types of roles? Who will be the clients that buy your services? Whose problem are you solving? Is your idea actually a viable business proposition? As you answer the questions, and decide between the different options, try not to be too black and white.

There are far more constellations of jobs than we might at first imagine, with new hybrid and portfolio careers opening up the possibilities to create our own ideal working arrangements. If you find gaps in your skills, what can you do to fill those gaps? For job seekers, it can be hard to figure out if a career path is the right one. The amount of contact you have with coworkers, customers, and the public at large can be a big factor in deciding if a career is a good fit for you.

On the other hand, if you prefer to concentrate on details and not deal with many people, make sure you are not taking on a customer service role — you will burn out in a few months. When looking at a career, focus on more than just the short-term. Yes, you need a job now, but make sure you are looking for a position that has advancement potential.

Look at job descriptions for your dream job — the one you hope to have someday and retire from. What kind of qualifications and experience does it require? Will the jobs you are looking at, fulfill those requirements? One of the most effective ways to tell if a career is right for you is to talk with people who are in that career. It is easier than ever to find people willing to give you advice and input about their careers — find influencers on LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs, or through old-fashioned face-to-face networking. Ask questions and see if that career path matches up with the things you value and want from your professional life.

This article first appeared on Kununu. Linda Le Phan is the Senior Content Marketing Manager at kununu US, a place where job seekers can get an authentic view of life at a company and where employers have a trusted platform to better engage talent. Ladders offers the best professional advice every step of the job search process. What can we help you with? Millennials earning more at their age than past generations This CEO chooses to lose millions in revenue for the benefit of his workers Survey: Millennials earning more at their age than past generations These are the 5 most caffeinated cities in the country, according to Uber.

Millennials earning more at their age than past generations. Millennials earning more at their age than past generations Study: Everyone talks a lot about how much of a struggle job hunting can be. What job is actually right for my next step in life? What career path am I actually going for? These are all some common thoughts that might go through your head specifically if: What career is right for me? Clues to finding your passion Look at the flip side of your weaknesses.

If there is something you hate to do, look at its opposite. For example, if organizational ability is not one of your strengths, you may be better suited to a less structured, perhaps artistic environment where creativity is a higher priority than organization. If working in an office makes you feel claustrophobic, perhaps you would prefer working outdoors. What subjects do you like to read about? If you are consistently drawn to a certain subject, that indicates a strong interest in that area and could provide useful information about your calling.

How do you spend your leisure time? Sometimes a hobby can be turned into a career. What kind of work would you do for free? Volunteer work can uncover some strong interests. Confirm your passion Research—Your local library contains a wealth of information on careers.

This is a good place to start your research. Also, conduct informational interviews. Once you have narrowed your options to a few possible careers, set up appointments with individuals in those fields to talk to them about what they do. Career Assessment—Career assessment can give you valuable information about your interests, values, and skills as they relate to the world of work.

Assessment gives you information about yourself and what types of work environments would probably suit you. In area 1 — What do you enjoy? Do you like meeting new people, or would you rather work alone? In area 2 — What do you do well? Could you sell sand in the desert, or are you a blunt and direct communicator?

Can you motivate a group to perform, even when circumstances are less than perfect? Do you catch every little mistake and overlooked detail? In area 3 — Is there any demand? Are there any jobs advertised like the one you envision? Are there any businesses similar to what you are planning? Ask yourself some honest questions In career development workshops and in one on one coaching, I always emphasize that people need to be very thoughtful and analytical about their job decisions.

Here are some questions people should think through and answer: What do I really excel at? How can I build on what I am best at to deliver business results and enhance my career? During my career, do I want to be a people manager or not? Do I thrive on executive interaction and exposure, or do I prefer backroom analysis? Similarly, decide what is most important to you.

Step one — Find your brand: Step two — Consider the gaps: Turn your hobby into a career Finding the career for you require a bit of self reflection. Third, rewrite your resume and network using the brag factors! Here are top considerations to build self-awareness that allow you to home in on — he right career options: The trick is to meld your SKA with the following: What top ways would you like to be defined as a person, what you stand for, and as guide to living your life?

Whereas your core values define who you are, you have needs that run the span of mirroring to contradicting your values. Knowing your most dominant needs can help you decide how to satisfy them in reasonable ways instead of driving you to behave in dysfunctional ways. What are the usual patterns of your responses or relationships to other personalities, situations, information, things, and tasks? For example, what types of personalities do you usually enjoy spending time or working with, and what are usually challenging for you to deal with?

How much information and learning do you require to feel confident and how much do you need to communicate to others? Editor, Copy My Resume 8. What are you good at? What do you care about? What will actually generate an income? When you have answered each of the questions, click "Continue" to go on. There are 24 total questions. After you complete The Princeton Review Career Quiz we will show you careers that match the "style" and "interest" colors you created.

The colors have particular meanings:. People with yellow interests like job responsibilities that include organizing and systematizing, and professions that are detail-oriented, predictable, and objective.

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People with yellow Interests enjoy activities that include: People with green interests like job responsibilities and occupations that involve persuasion, sales, promotions, and group or personal contact. People with green Interests enjoy activities that include: These Interests often lead to work in marketing, advertising, training, therapy, consulting, teaching, law, and public relations. People with blue interests like job responsibilities and occupations that involve creative, humanistic, thoughtful, and quiet types of activities. Blue Interests include abstracting, theorizing, designing, writing, reflecting, and originating, which often lead to work in editing, teaching, composing, inventing, mediating, clergy, and writing.

People with yellow styles perform their job responsibilities in a manner that is orderly and planned to meet a known schedule. They prefer to work where things get done with a minimum of interpretation and unexpected change. People with a yellow style tend to be orderly, cautious, structured, loyal, systematic, solitary, methodical, and organized, and usually thrive in a research-oriented, predictable, established, controlled, measurable, orderly environment.

You will want to choose a work environment or career path in which your style is welcomed and produces results. People with green styles perform their job responsibilities in a manner that is outgoing. They prefer to work where things get done with minimal analysis and where persuasion is well received by others.

People with green styles tend to be spontaneous, talkative, personal, enthusiastic, convincing, risk-taking, and competitive, and usually thrive in a team-oriented, adventurous, informal, innovative, big picture-oriented, varied environment. People with blue styles prefer to perform their job responsibilities in a manner that is supportive and helpful to others with a minimum of confrontation. They prefer to work where they have time to think things through before acting. People with blue style tend to be insightful, reflective, selectively sociable, creative, thoughtful, emotional, imaginative, and sensitive.

Usually they thrive in a cutting edge, informally paced, future-oriented environment. People with red styles prefer to perform their job responsibilities in a manner that is action-oriented and practical. They prefer to work where things happen quickly and results are seen immediately. People with red styles tend to be straightforward, assertive, logical, personable, authoritative, friendly, direct, and resourceful, and usually thrive in a self-structured, high-pressured, hierarchical, production-oriented, competitive environment.

It is important to note that interest in an activity does not necessarily indicate skill. Yellow — People with yellow Interests like job responsibilities that include organizing and systematizing, and professions that are detail-oriented, predictable, and objective.

Career Quiz | The Princeton Review

Green — People with green Interests like job responsibilities and occupations that involve persuasion, sales, promotions, and group or personal contact. Blue — People with blue Interests like job responsibilities and occupations that involve creative, humanistic, thoughtful, and quiet types of activities. Explore our featured colleges to find schools that both match your interests and are looking for students like you.

Explore our featured business schools to find those that both match your interests and are looking for students like you. We know that great scores take work. That's why we design our courses to be efficient, targeted and strategic so you make the most of every minute you spend prepping. Our experts know how to design lessons based on how you're learning. We love our teachers, and so will you. Teach or Tutor for Us. The Princeton Review is not affiliated with Princeton University. I would rather be a wildlife expert.

I would rather be a public relations professional. I would rather be a company controller. I would rather be a TV news anchor. I would rather be a tax lawyer. I would rather be a newspaper editor. I would rather be an auditor. I would rather be a musician. I would rather be a production manager.

2. Look for the overlap of three things that make up your career “sweet spot”

I would rather be an advertising manager. I would rather be an accounting manager. I would rather be a history professor. I would rather be a bookkeeper. I would rather be an electrician. I would rather be a writer.