In this article, we offer you an effective and proven framework to help you choose the career track that is ideal for you. They are a great way to begin the self-discovery process.
Research Yourself: Self-Assessment
To pick the right career for you, you need to understand yourself. You first need to record, understand and prioritize the following:
What are my professional interests?
Consider what aspects of the software, IT and Technology industries and profession most excite you. Determine the technologies and job responsibilities you find most compelling.
What are my skills?
Understand your skills by conducting a skills assessment inventory. Take the Online Certifications to gauge your aptitude.
What are my needs?
Understand your job needs and prioritize them. Common needs include: financial, emotional, time and location.
What are my values? What do I care about and most want from my job?
Understand your values by listing 10 or 15 values and prioritizing them.
Examples of values are: advancement, aesthetics, affiliation, artistic creativity, challenge, change and variety, community, competition, creativity, being on the cutting edge, diversity, wealth, excitement, friendships, helping others, independence, influence, intellectual recognition, job security, job tranquility, knowledge, authority, leadership, precision, self-expression, socio-economic status, stability, time freedom, and work/life balance.
What are my personal attributes?
Think about yourself and the sort of person you are to determine what words best describe your personality, who you are, and how you tend think and behave.
Examples include: your ability to deal with pressure, adaptability, charisma, confidence, commitment, commonsense, enthusiasm, flexibility, honesty, integrity, loyalty motivation, reliability, self esteem and sense of humor.
For some of you, these are easy questions. For others, these questions are much harder. Luckily, there are a range of tools available to help you answer these questions such as: professional testing, professional counseling, personal self-awareness techniques, peer-assessment surveys and self-assessment surveys. For those of you just embarking on your careers, the university career office is often a good first place to check for tools to research yourself. Review your skills to see where your specific strengths may lie.
Research Career Paths
Using your understanding of yourself, start looking at occupations that you think best match your interests. To research how your interests match up with different occupations, head to the Internet, your career center and/or library. Many will have systems that match occupations to interests.
Eliminate what you do not like
Often, it is easiest to start by simply ruling out what you do not like. Work on eliminating occupations that are definitely not for you.
Prioritize what interests you
Take the list of occupations that match up with your interests and prioritize them as best you can. Try to get this list of occupations down to a manageable number. We recommend four or five. If your list comes out to ten, this just means you will have more areas to explore further.
Research Specific Career Paths
By now, you have narrowed the universe of possible career path options down to a manageable size. It is now time to get into the details of each career. Get on the Internet and collect information about responsibilities, job requirements and qualifications, salary and benefits, advancement opportunities, working conditions, location, training options, work atmosphere, and any other information that is especially important to you.
Once you have done this research, begin talking with friends, family, classmates, colleagues, professors, career counselors and others about the occupations on your list. By doing your internet research beforehand, you accomplish two key things:
First, since you already have a good sense of the basic details from your internet research you can use this opportunity to get a deeper sense and understanding of the occupation you are researching. Typically, people will be glad to talk about themselves with you.
Second, by talking with people about your prospective career choices you are marketing yourself. You never know – one of the people you talk with may offer you a job on the spot. To anyone with whom you speak, it will be readily apparent you are a well-organized, conscientious, clear-thinking professional who has worked to learn as much as possible on your own before talking with people. You will not need to ask obvious questions that are wasting both of your time – such as “Where is the office located?”
Eliminate what you do not like
After this research, you should again eliminate any options that your research has shown do not work for you.
Prioritize what interests you
You have now spent a lot of time researching and learning about different careers and occupations – take some time to re-prioritize the occupations and careers and you should come out to one or two good choices.
Tentatively Choose a Career Path
At this stage, knowing what you know about yourself and having learned about the different career paths that interest you, it is time to tentatively select an occupation to pursue. Do not worry! This is not your final decision. Make the best decision you can. The more research you have done, the better off you will be.
Test Your Choice
No matter how much research and self-assessment you do, there is sometimes no substitute for actual work experience. This does not mean you need to go take a job. Instead, try some related coursework, take an internship, volunteer in a related field, shadow a worker at a company for a day or take a part-time job.
Eliminate the career path if, after further investigation, the path does not turn out to be what you had hoped it would be. If so, do not worry; revisit the research you recorded in steps 2 and 3 and pick a new career path.
Decide on a Career Path
Finally, you have found the right career path. Take the time to review the requirements of this career path from your research and pursue any additional coursework, training, or certifications needed to prepare you. You are now ready to start the job search process in your chosen field.
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