An Essential Guide to Finding the Right Career

Within this guide, we will share with you 10 vital steps on how to find the right career path and start making your first moves.

Think of choosing a career like a jigsaw puzzle. Many pieces need to fit nicely together to build a complete picture of who you are as a professional. You need to consider several factors such as your personality, natural talents, interests, lifestyle and existing skillset. It can be hard to identify all of these by yourself; that’s where career testing comes in.

While some of your matches may not have considered before, you can rest assured that the options you receive are a good fit for you.

As mentioned, there are a few factors to consider when choosing your career. Rather than letting salary be the determining factor for your career choice, think about what else you would value within a profession.

Specific jobs, like being a professor, confer a great status but not a high income. Others, like being a lawyer or a doctor, pay well, but they also require long or unpredictable working hours. Other roles, such as entrepreneurship, can mean lots of excitement and creative control but can also be an unstable source of income.

Whatever your choice, make sure to select a career that aligns with your values and expectations, as it can have a significant impact on how happy and satisfied you will be with your career in the long run.

How do you get a trial job? Just ask for it. Rather than applying through job ads, where the employer is probably looking for someone long-term, why not reach out to businesses, introduce yourself and tell them what you’re trying to do? They might not have an urgent need for another interior designer, but if you reach out and explain your situation, they might give you a few weeks or a month to trial the job.

Job trials are an excellent way to disqualify career options that might sound appealing but won’t work in the long run. As an employee, you might be on probation for a few months when you get a new job, so why not put the jobs themselves on probation and see if you actually like them?

And if the employers and companies you contact don’t have the budget to hire you as temporary staff, you could also look for job shadowing, volunteering and short internship options too!

Thinking about your career options can only take you so far. Discovering your career path calls for action, and that’s a whole different ball game. If you’re considering two career options, for instance, pick the one that is more accessible to you and take it from there.

For example, you might have a degree in finance, but you find yourself drawn to writing and graphic design. How do you choose which one to pursue? Why not pick a job with a financial firm and offer to help out the marketing team with their content or graphic design needs? This way, you’ve got your leg through the door and can try out your other career paths without suffering any financial loss.

While taking action might make sense when you have a few career options to strive towards, things can get a bit out of hand when there are too many options or, indeed, no options at all.

Instead, why not start small? Rather than wondering whether this next job opportunity will really take you where you’re supposed to be in five or ten years, give it a go and see what happens.

Did you enjoy going to work? Or did you feel trapped and bored? Can you see yourself doing this long term? These can be good early indicators of whether or not you’re on the right track.

Taking one step at a time gives you the freedom to adjust your path as circumstances change and really experiment with your options.

We often underestimate the role networking can play in our job search, opting for more conventional methods such as job boards and job adverts. But networking can also play a significant role when it comes to career exploration. The more people you meet from different walks of life, the more of a diverse portfolio of opportunities and insights you will gain. Ultimately, networking could help you decide whether a career path is right for you or not by merely talking to others.

Lifestyle is rarely, if ever, considered when we’re making a career choice. However, every job comes with a different schedule, dynamic and working space.

If you decide that you’d like to be a firefighter because you want to help people but don’t want to be on call at 3 am when the next fire alarm goes off, you haven’t really thought things through.

All of these things can influence how you feel about your job and, ultimately, whether you will be satisfied with it or not. So, when you’re considering different professions, make sure to factor in the lifestyle that you would like to lead, too.

Other professionals, like a growth hacker, digital marketers and virtual assistants, are all products of the internet, and none of them existed before the 2000s.

One way to release some of the pressure of making the right choice is to tell yourself that the career you choose doesn’t have to be the be-all and end-all. We can sometimes be too strict with ourselves, thinking there’s only one true calling and that, if we haven’t found it, we have failed. Nothing can be further from the truth.

When choosing your career path, think about your interests but also be aware that these interests can change over time. This means that your career doesn’t necessarily have to follow a straight, linear path, and that’s okay.

Regardless of what profession you choose, it’s likely that you have some type of online presence, which your future employer can easily find before hiring you. Therefore, working on your personal branding can play an essential role in getting the career you want.

Of course, your personal brand should be a true reflection of who you are as a professional and what people can expect when working with you.

At the end of the day, choosing the right career path isn’t a process you go through once in your life and then you’re done.

Instead, careers can be fluid, changing parts of our lives that can offer us immense fulfilment, as long as we stay curious, connect with others in meaningful ways and continue to take steps forward.

This article is an updated version of an earlier article originally published on 30 December 2016.

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