Whether you are still in school or you are just looking to jumpstart your life in a new direction, read on and discover a few very helpful steps to take before choosing a career. Choosing the right career can sometimes be difficult but you should know that having a defined career direction will help you with getting a job. There are also a lot of people who know what they would like to do but they don’t have a concrete plan in mind when it comes to selecting the career that will suit them best. But with a bit of planning, some hard work and some very serious self-reflection, they can set themselves on the path towards a fulfilling career that will bring the lots of personal satisfaction and joy. Here are 7 important steps to take before choosing a career that you should consider:
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Assess Yourself
One of the most important things you should do before choosing a career is to assess yourself. Just keep in mind that your interests, your skills, your values, in combination with certain personality traits, will make some careers very suitable for you and others quite inappropriate. So what kind of things interest you? What are you naturally drawn to? When are you the happiest? What are you doing in those moments?
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Make a List of Potential Occupations
Once you assess yourself, you should move on to making a list of potential occupations that should contain the types of careers you would like to pursue. Select jobs that interest you and think about occupations that you find appealing. You should come up with a rather short list, one consisting of between five and ten occupations.
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Explore the Occupations on Your List
Now that you've come up with a list of occupations, you should explore each one of them. To do this, you should look at the job description, job outlook, educational requirements, advancement opportunities and earnings. Just try to learn as much as you can about each of those careers, talk to professionals in those fields or do some research online.
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Narrow down Your List
After you carefully review each of those careers, try to eliminate the ones that no longer interest you. For example, you may realize that you don’t want to put the time and energy into preparing for a career for which an advanced degree is required, or in some cases you may consider the earnings for a particular career quite inadequate. So once you thoroughly review each of those occupations, you should narrow down your list to 1-2 options.
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Set Goals
Once you get an idea regarding what you would like to do in your career, you should try to establish some attainable goals, both short and long term ones. Just keep in mind that short-term goals can be met between 1-3 years while the long-term ones can be met between 3-5 years. Be prepared to work hard and have patience because it will not be easy reaching each of those goals.
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To give oneself earnestly to the duties due to men, and, while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom.
Create a Career Action Plan
The next thing you should do is to begin developing a career action plan consisting of specific goals that you want to reach and carefully planned steps that you should take to fulfill your dreams. Think about the obstacles that you may encounter in your path and about the resources you can use when assistance is needed.
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Obtain Training
If you chose a certain occupation, you should know that it is likely you will have to train for your new career. This could take the form of getting a degree in a certain field, doing an internship or even taking some courses to learn some new skills.
There are a lot of things that you should consider before choosing a career. I just mentioned a few in this little article but I’m sure that there are many more I could add to this list. Do you know any other steps to take before choosing a career? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments section!
Sources:
careerprofiles.info
wikihow.com
streetdirectory.com
insidejobs.com
careerplanning.about.com
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