The whole notion of career choice can be vastly open to interpretation these days. There are many people who have taken to reassessing their entire lives since the pandemic, including their choice of career. But sometimes, when we don’t know what career we really want, it can be tough to find the thing that suits us best. It’s not uncommon to feel confused about your career choices, even later in life. So, here are a few ways to choose the right career for you, regardless of where you are in life.
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Take Career Tests
While tests such as the Myers-Briggs and the Strong Interest Inventory test can point you in the right direction, it’s important to remember that a career test is not there to tell you what you should be doing, but it can help you narrow down your options and give you suggestions for roles that will suit your unique strengths, interests, and personality. When you take a career test, you can then make a list of those suggested jobs and use this as a springboard to conduct additional research into the right career for you. Career tests can be an invaluable tool, but they can also take us down a rabbit hole, which is why the next point is so critical.
Reflect on Your Own Passions and Needs
It can be easy enough to find a bunch of career choices based on your skills or qualifications, but you also need to spend more time digging deep into the things that really impact your life. You may look at what your strengths are in terms of your professional life, but you also need to look at the things that motivate you to do your best. This should always form a starting point, because if you choose a career path that uses your unique skills and actually interests you, there’s a high chance that this will be a winning combination.
Get a Feel for Certain Roles
Because there are so many different career paths out there, you can find a number of different subcategories based on your chosen industry. An obvious example is if you wanted to work in healthcare, there are so many different subsections beyond typical doctor or nursing roles. You can start your research by looking at the things that interest you in accordance with your current qualifications, but then also look for unique career paths that you may not have initially heard of. One of the benefits of looking for less obvious or lesser-known career paths is that there’s likely to be less competition, meaning that you can invariably utilize your unique strengths and feel like you can put the best version of yourself forward in an application, without worrying about the modern approach to applying for roles, for example, ensuring your resume has certain keywords.
When it comes to figuring out what career suits you but you still don’t know what to do for a living, you have to remember that it’s not just about committing to the first job you are offered, but instead, applying for a variety of roles and think about what you would enjoy more than anything, because there’s always time to change your career, regardless of where you are in life.
