Career & Finance Fridays

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” -Confucius

Choosing a career is one of the most important decisions of every individual's life. Therefore, it is important to know how to go about making the right decision. Choosing a career isn't a one-time decision but a continuous series of decisions you make according to plans and goals you set out for yourself. See this as a series of small tiles that come together to form a mosaic, with your career being the final picture.

In this article, we highlight the importance of choosing a career and five major guiding principles on how to choose one.

Importance of choosing the right career

Here are a few reasons why you should know how to choose the right career:

It offers fulfilment

Choosing the right career contributes to a life of fulfilment. This is simply because you would be doing a job you care about and never have to worry about quitting a job you hate. Also, you will have the right reasons and motivation to go on when you get tired.

It gives you a head start

Choosing the right career gives you an advantage over your peers in that profession. This is because you get involved early in the career process, and have the right motivation and attributes to excel at that chosen career. This will enable you to perform optimally and consequently improve your chances of having a rapid career advancement unlike the others who aren't a right fit for that career.

It determines your achievements

Achieving anything worthwhile in any profession requires ample effort. In turn, working in the right career path determines how much effort you can put in spontaneously. Therefore, it is important to choose the right career because it affects your level of achievement.

How to choose a career

The following are five of the major principles to be applied when deciding on a career:

1. Identify your strengths

You should be able to identify the qualities you are strongest at when looking to choose a career. Being able to identify your strengths helps you build a career in a field where you are comfortable.

The first step toward identifying your strengths is taking an unbiased mental picture of yourself. To simplify the process and make it more effective, take a pen and make a list of your core attributes. Ensure to outline your skills, personality traits, goals and ambitions. By doing this, you begin to match your core skills and attributes with the role requirements of some career paths you have in mind.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself to help you effectively identify your strengths:

• What are you good at?

• What traits define you?

• What is your level of education?

• What are your interests?

• What inspires you?

• What do you want from your career?

• What are your core values?

The answers to these questions will streamline your options to a few options from which you can pick. If you don't have an idea of what works for you and cannot identify your strengths, then you should consider taking a specialized personality test.

2. Match your strengths with potential career paths

After identifying your strengths, you need to identify and outline possible career paths that interest you. You should make a list of at least 10 professions you like or feel are in line with your personality and skills. You can also list a few careers you can't see yourself pursuing, as this will further narrow down your career options and put things in perspective.

Rigorous research about the listed careers is what follows. Here is where you find out the minimum requirements for each profession educationally, physically and mentally. Consider things like your lifestyle compatibility, working hours, job satisfaction, pay, compatibility with your core values and interests.

As you continue your research, prioritize jobs that are in line with your aspirations and dismiss ones that clash or have little in common with your strong attributes.

Do you want to work in high-paced formal setups in a big multinational company? Or do you want the freedom, creativity and communal feeling that comes with start-ups? Are you motivated by money or are you driven by selfless service? The answers to these questions point you in the direction of potential careers that fall in line with your strengths.

3. Make the decision

The next thing to do when deciding on a career is to make a firm decision. At this stage, you've learned about yourself, you've made a list of potential careers that work in tandem with your skills and aspirations, and you've been able to match your skills with a number of career paths. Now, it's time to further narrow down your options to the most optimal ones -- one or two options you can devote your attention to.

You should make up your mind on what works for you the most from your shortlist. Your choice does not have to be a single career option. Instead, you can have one or two options you can fall back on if things don't work out well with your primary career choice.

To ensure you make the best career choice, here are a few things to consider while making the decision:

• Working hours

• Job fulfilment

• Pay/remuneration

• Opportunity for self-growth and development

• Geographical location

• Job market

• Opinions of close family and friends

If you still find it hard to make a final decision, try to revisit the list of pros and cons of each of the careers you listed earlier. It will provide further clarification. Also, repeat the processes until you are convinced about making the right decision. Always be open to more information and never disregard any misgivings you might come up with.

4. Research

After making a choice or a few choices, you need to develop your knowledge about the chosen career to further substantiate your decision. You need to carry out a systemic investigation about the career by consulting study materials and resources available.

Conducting a thorough investigation makes you know how well you'll fit into and be able to fulfil the role requirements of the chosen career path. The internet contains plenty of information that could help you deal with the early stages of your career. Furthermore, you should talk to a worker in your field to get a clearer image of what it is like.

You can conduct further research by:

• interviewing professionals in your field

• seeking internship placements

• conducting online research

• joining communities

• seeking mentorships

5. Set goals

Goals are the object of a person's ambition or effort. It can also be referred to as an aim or desired result, set to be achieved with a clear set of actions. Goals are essential because they create a scoreboard that you can use to measure your progress at every point. A key to achieving personal goals is to make them realistic and achievable.

It is not enough to stop at making a choice; you need to monitor your progress along that career path over a specific period of time to see how well you are doing. Your progress over the set period allows you to decide on the correctness of your decision.

You can set two types of goals to track your performance. Both of these types of goals differ by the timeframe within which they are to be achieved. They include the following:

Short-term goals

These are goals you aim to complete in the nearest future, usually between a few days to weeks or months. They are assignments that you have to accomplish before or right after a formal application is submitted to your industry of choice. Examples of short-term goals are:

1. Reviewing and tailoring your resume

2. Gaining relevant experience via internships

3. Improving your interviewing skills

Long-term goals

Long-term goals refer aspirations you intend to accomplish in the future. They are set to be achieved after a few years in your career. They are often a result of the accumulated result of accomplishing different short-term goals. Therefore, they require a lot of planning. Examples of long-term goals include:

1. Improving leadership skills

2. Acquiring leadership skills

3. Earning a promotion

4. Gaining management experience

Advantages of setting goals

• Goals allow you to measure success: Setting career goals provides a standard to measure progress against so you know how well you are faring.

• Goals give focus: When you have your sight set on hitting a particular milestone or target, you tend to eliminate all forms of distractions until you achieve it. This is very essential for career advancement.

• They make decision-making easier: When you have clear goals, it becomes easy to make decisions, even when in a dilemma, because you already know what you are after.

• They provide direction: Goals keep you moving in the right direction using a series of well-planned actions and steps.

Employment & Career

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