By Isha Narang
A huge part of our lives is impacted by our careers: financial stability, self-identity, or freedom. This fact increases the responsibility of making the right career choice and creates an overwhelming situation because teenagers know that their whole life is going to be influenced by their decision, so here they are obliged to make the right career choice. And at their age, they need an expert’s advice to help them out, because they often get confused and make wrong career choices influenced by their friends or families.
And unfortunately, everyone around you can give you the list of “options” that you can choose the best, but no one guides you in the ways of making the right career choice as per your skills and interests.
If you are also unsure about your career and the availability of several options, making it more confusing for you, these few tips can ease your difficulty. Have a look below.
HOW TO MAKE THE RIGHT CAREER CHOICE
1. KNOW YOURSELF
Choosing the right career needs an in-depth evaluation process about your skills, interests, and prospects of that specific career option, and knowing the pros and cons of the career choice you will make. Take a piece of paper and a pen, and let’s give it a try for analyzing how much you know about yourself. This assessment must include your skills (which is the most important thing to analyze), your interests, and your personality. Your chosen career must relate to these three factors. If this sounds quite difficult, then you can take online support.
There are so many online tools available for assessing your skills and interests. Participate in the online career tests, this will help you in assessing yourself, like who exactly you are, and what interests you the most. Based on your answer, the assessment tools will generate an automated report, which gives you a clear idea about your strengths and weaknesses.
Sometimes people overestimate their skills and think that they are very well versed in a specific category or field, and hence choose the wrong profile for themselves. Taking an aptitude test makes you aware of the fact that you are not highly expert in the field as much as you think you are. And inversely, if you think that you are less skilled in something but the fact is the opposite than you expected, then taking an aptitude test will show you the fact that you may possess more skills unknowingly. Online tools also create a list of career profiles, which are the most relevant to choose as per your skills.
2. CREATE A LIST OF ALL THE CAREER OPTIONS AS PER YOUR SKILLS
Tools may provide you with a huge list of occupations, note down those professions on your page that you consider more interesting and that you find worth exploring. These may be the occupations about which you heard from people around you or some may also be quite new for you.
3. START EXPLORING
This is the most crucial step, for shortlisting the most suitable profiles on the list, you need to explore each profile online. Check the prospect of that profession, job duties, expected earnings, eligibility criteria, etc. Carefully view each aspect of the specific career options.
Based on the information you receive regarding each occupation, decide and create a final list in which you want to initiate your career by carefully analyzing the income opportunities, job outlook, and job responsibilities linked with each profile. Also, discard the occupations which seem unappealing to you.
4. TRY TO MEET PEOPLE FROM THE SAME INDUSTRY YOU SHORTLISTED IN MIND
Meet the people around you in person who belongs to the same profession. This will facilitate you in knowing their satisfaction level and experiences. This will also help you in knowing the pros and cons of the particular profession you are willing to choose.
5. TAKE A FINAL DECISION
Based on your deep analysis, this is the time to get to a final decision. Choose the occupation that you are most interested in and that seems to make you passionate about working, and whose eligibility criteria you can meet.
6. EXECUTION
At last, bring your decision into action by enrolling in the particular courses and internships required for your desired occupation. Here you also need to perform a bit of research about choosing the best college and internship program for your chosen occupation.
Isha is a fitness and wellness coach. She shares a lot of health and diet-related tips in her blog.
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