Career Selection: Surviving the Career Selection Process

Career Selection: Surviving The Career Selection Process

Imagine that you could do anything, forgetting the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities required, or how much it would cost you to do it. What if you could have any career you wanted anywhere in the world? What would that career be? Close your eyes and visualize yourself in that career, now hold that image in your mind. The thought of choosing and planning for a future career can be challenging for many. Many times this is simply because you might not know where to begin your search. There are so many career possibilities available, how do you select the right one for yourself? Career decisions dramatically impact your life. The path you choose will determine where you live, your income, how much time you spend at home, your travels, and how you spend your leisure time. Choosing a career is more of a journey than a destination, and there is no one right path to take. You may travel many different paths before finding the one that offers you the most satisfaction. Although there are numerous opportunities available to you, you do have to start somewhere in your search. There are many factors to consider when selecting a career. These factors include nearly every aspect of one's life.

According to Beach, we tend to make decisions as follows: first, we survey the situation to figure out what is wrong; then we decide what we are going to do about it; finally, we take action (Eikleberry, 1999, p 05). Making good decisions depends upon gathering good information. The first step is to gather information about you. What do you like to do with your time? What activities do you perform especially well? What are the things in life that are most important to you? Interest's likes and dislikes, skills competencies and knowledge, and values (where you place importance) are some of the most important factors to consider when exploring the choice of a concentration and a future career. Knowing yourself well makes it easier to narrow or expand your options, because you can use what you know to evaluate how well a particular concentration or career will fulfill what you like and what is important to you. Your greatest professional satisfaction occurs when you are in a career that uses those identified characteristics. Acknowledging that your value system extends into your work life will assist you in achieving career satisfaction. When considering career fields, explore the work values you think are important.

Think back to high school and the types of activities you were involved in: athletics, student clubs, honor societies, community service, and so on. What was it that drew you to these activities? Why did you enjoy them - or did you? Now think about the activities you are participating in during your college years. You may find that your college interests are or were very similar to those from high school. However, college life may have introduced you to a variety of people, activities, and organizations that you have never had the opportunity to get involved with in the past. Your interests may change as you discover a new world through these new people and activities. Look at how you spend your time, where you spend it, and with whom. Answering the questions above can help give you a better sense of whom you are and what you want to be doing with your work time as well as your free time. Since you will be spending the majority of your time at work, it makes sense to look for ways to incorporate your day-to-day interests into your choices of academic study and careers. If you are having problems identifying your interests and how they relate to various career options you might consider taking and interest inventory or test to help you further identify and clarify your interests.

After gathering information about yourself, you can begin exploring concentrations and career options - just what is out there? Exploration is hard...and it is rewarding. Exploration pushes us t our limits... and it brings out the best in us (Caple, 1983, p 79). You should not be making a decision at this point; instead, you should simply be increasing your knowledge of various academic disciplines and careers. One of the biggest mistakes that individuals make in their careers is to go aimlessly through school or work in an entry-level position with no clear direction or goals. They wait until the homestretch, graduation, layoff, or departure before taking a stab at other opportunities. There are a number of methods for researching your career options. A number of books, periodicals, and newsletters are available to help you explore careers. You can usually find an overview of a profession, typical activities performed, qualifications required, job outlook for the future and salary potential. The World Wide Web is a vast source of information that should be tapped when researching careers.

Once you have identified an occupation that sounds interesting, talking with people who already work in that field can be tremendously informative. They can provide special insight into the rewards and rigors of a particular occupation, as well as tell you specific information about their organization. People with the same job title, in the same type of industry, might perform very different functions (e.g., consulting with Price Waterhouse Coopers might be quite different than with Abbott, Langer & Associates). A valuable way to research careers is by getting involved in them early. Volunteering, working part-time, conducting research with a professor, or securing an internship are all great ways to gain a deeper appreciation of day to day life in a particular field or industry. Practical experiences help you evaluate and test your choices. Utilize as many different resources and gather as much information as possible. Use what you have learned about yourself to rule out the obvious choices that are not for you. This is time consuming and, at times, overwhelming, but the investment you make in gathering good information often aids good decision-making.

Making the actual decision about which concentration or career to pursue can be the most difficult and frustrating part of the process. It is scary to think, "Do I really want to do this the rest of my life?" It is nerve-wracking to wonder, "What if I make the wrong choice?" These are not uncommon feelings, but they are the greatest myths about career decision-making. Generally speaking, roughly two out of three college students change majors at least once. On average, people change careers fields three to four times in their lifetimes. A decision in college about an initial career path does not predetermine the rest of your life. A career is really is series of jobs and other events that string together to form a larger pattern. When making