Hey Badasses!
It’s my birthday today, but more importantly it’s also your weekly dose of career support…
If you are currently in the process of considering your career options, but are struggling to decide if a specific career is for you or not, what should you focus on? And how do you identify if a career is the best fit for you?
Google is your friend here and it needn’t be a hugely time-consuming activity, if you focus your research. To help with this focus, you should attempt to answer the following 7 questions (in no particular order):
1) Will I earn enough?
Salaries in any given profession are set by profit margins and supply & demand of the workforce. You need to decide if the wages on offer will support your lifestyle needs. And don’t forget to investigate the benefit industry standards within that profession too, as these can hugely affect your annual take home salary.
2) Will I find job satisfaction?
You need to take some time to explore what motivates you and gets you up in the morning, then you’ll have a good idea of how satisfying you’ll find a particular career. You can always do a personality test (loads on line), but personally I think it’s something you should be able to figure out yourself. It also goes without saying that your work should also align with your ethical perspectives.
3) Will there be a strong demand for this career and what might influence this demand in the future? You should research what the job outlook is for this profession and the trends that might influence it in the future (e.g. automation, artificial intelligence and other technologies). Identifying trends that affect job availability will be hugely valuable.
4) Will I need to relocate or are there local opportunities available? Learn where people work in the chosen field. Then weigh up if you have the capacity to move for the right opportunity if need be.
5) Will I require additional skills, education and experience to get into this profession? This is a straight-forward one to research. LinkedIn can useful here to look at the qualifications and experience of others working in that field and you can change our profile settings to ‘private mode’ if you wish to remain anonymous when doing so.
6) Will I have what it takes to be successful in this field? Some of the factors affecting this will be within your control (e.g. your education, experience, network and passion), but others you can’t (e.g. natural ability and serendipity. So, this is a tricky one to answer, but you can at least attempt a best educated guesstimate!
7) Will it have any negative effect on my personal life? Your job and personal life are intertwined in all respects. For example, your work will affect your stress levels, your self-worth and take time away from other aspects of your life, so it’s crucial to consider these aspects for your personal well-being.
Answering these questions will enable you to prioritise any options you have and identify the most appealing. Your next step should then be to start reaching out those in the industry for more information, but more on networking in future posts. ‘Til then remember to stay focused and be a badass in your career! As always; comments, feedback, questions welcome…
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Awesome questions ! Love how you crystallized all possible fears of treading an unknown career path, into a more relevant tool with concrete action steps to help achieve clarity.
Breaking down what is a huge task for many into small chunks is invaluable. They are all great points and I’ve used them in the past.
Thanks Tope and Priya for the fantastic feedback. Glad you found the piece it helpful.
Vicky