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Finding
The Right Career For You
Twenty or thirty years ago, finding the right career was limited by
lack of global internet tools, restricted by more old-fashioned (if
you will) values and opinions, and less important than finding yourself.
I recall when my therapist, the savior of all saviors as far as Im
concerned, laughed with me over how I had gone about finding the right
career: I had taken all the courses I found interesting and many I
hoped were somehow related, then tried to decide on a major/career.
She gently joked that many people decide
first, then do the footwork of taking the required and necessary
and relevant courses, doing internships, and getting in at some
entry-level. Clearly, I didnt have the tools we do today for finding
the right career, or I didnt know about their existence and usefulness,
at least.
For example, a lot of students will use personality
testing and employment/goal assessments for finding the right career
right from the start of their semesters in college. ERIK, Psychometric
testing tools, and career skills assessment batteries will help
to define aptitude and save you time futzing around with majors
and minors that you THINK you MIGHT like when six years later decide
you need to start all over finding the right career, as offshore
drilling is not for you or interplanetary travel studies will take
too long or anthropological studies of tribes now extinct are wiped
off the college catalogs three quarters of the way into your educational
plan.
A fantastic implement of guidance, information,
and statistical projection for finding the right career is the Index
to Careers Guide, created, updated/maintained, and provided both
online and off (in college and high school career centers, for instance)
by the U.S. Department of Labor/Bureau of Labor Statistics.
If finding the right career is a task you feel
or think requires a knowledge of salaries, working conditions, descriptions
of the nature of the work involved, training and other qualification
requirements, the number of jobs/positions held in that field and
the competition involved, and projected job openings, then go to
www.bls.dol.gov and type in any career title or browse the index
of thousands of positions/job types.
Another brilliant tool is one that comes in workbook
form and accompanies the What Color is Your Parachute and The Boxes
of Life books by Richard Bolles. The workbooks (and books) have
you take intensive (but interesting, fun) quizzes that lead you
to slowly but surely deduce or do a process of illimination experiment
that helps you in finding the right career FOR YOU not your Mom,
your dead Grandfather, or the culture around you who has all kinds
of opinions about who you are and who you should be but who does
not pay your rent or feed your kids when push comes to shove. Nor
are they the ones who need to live in your skin, sleep through the
night, or answer to your higher needs and greater consciousness
Resource : http://www.articlecircle.com/career/finding-the-right-career-for-you.html |
