What Career Is Right For Me?

This is a difficult question and one that only you can answer. In this section, we’re looking at choosing a career, how you go about it, and what resources are available to you, to help you make that decision.

Quick Content

The Difference Between The Right And Wrong Job

For some, choosing a career is very easy; they know exactly what they want to do with their career. For others, either you fall into a position and learn to enjoy it over time, or you end going through life hating your job.

The difference between choosing the right career path and enjoying your job is enormous. Over the course of your lifetime, it’s likely that you will be spending over a third of your life working.  In real terms, you’re going to be spending over 70,000 hours sat at your desk and more like 80,000 if you don’t retire early.

If you’re going to spend all this time sitting at your desk working, you will have a much great chance of being a success if you enjoy what you’re doing and have a passion for it.

Where to Start

So often candidates have no idea where to even start when thinking about their career. In this section, we’re going to look at potential jobs with the idea being that at the end of this section, you’ll have a list of careers that you could see yourself doing, those that you don’t want to even think about.

One point before we start, while I am a firm believer that the talent you possess, does not show how successful you’re going to be, it’s the effort that you put into that career that counts. There is no point in being unrealistic. If you hate flying, there is no point in considering to become a pilot.

Career List

Start off by thinking about the subjects that you studied at School or University. Which did you enjoy? Even if you enjoyed the subject, but could not see yourself going into that field there are options for you.  Recently one of my students that I have been advising mentioned during one of our career discussions that he really enjoyed computers but did not want to become a programmer or a computer technician.  After a few discussions it emerged that he really enjoyed teaching, and started looking into becoming a Computer Science Teacher.

After you’ve exhausted subjects that you’ve enjoyed at school or University, think about your natural talents. What do you find easy and enjoy doing? We all have things that we enjoy doing and those that we don’t. If you’re struggling to think of things that you’re good at, ask your friends what they think you’re good at.

On the one hand, we’re trying to build a list of potential careers, but at the same time, it’s essential to be making a list of jobs that we don’t want to be doing throughout our working career.

Corporate Vs. Entrepreneurship

One of the more critical questions you need to answer is whether you want to follow a corporate career or whether you want to build your own company.

Corporate life is not for everyone, and it changes over time. Personally, when I left University, I knew I wanted to work for an international corporation, however, I just had no idea what I wanted to do. For others, this is often not the case.

Over the years, I have met many professionals who could only see themselves building their own company and those that simply wanted to focus on their work-life balance. Remember, there are potential careers for everyone; you need to put in the time to understand what you will enjoy doing.

Money Vs. Stress

One of the critical questions you will need to ask yourself is how much you want to earn. Remember, there is a direct correlation between making money and the stress that goes with it. You may look at Bill Gates and think that he lives a beautiful life, however, I am sure over the years, running a multi-billion dollar company, he has had extremely stressful periods.

Is this something that you want? Or are you the type of person that does not want the stressful life of working in corporate or running your own company, and would prefer a more comfortable life.

End of Part One

The end result of the first part is you should have the beginnings of a career list.  Two columns, with one being for those careers that you simply do not want to do and the other for careers that are potential winners.

The next thing we’re going to look at is career profiles.  The internet is a wealth of information with many career advice websites providing career profiles showing what it’s really like to do a specific role.

Not only are career profiles useful to could confirm potential career interests that you might have, but they can also show you a selection of potential careers that you had not thought of.

Career Review Websites

Across the internet, there is enough information for you to waste a few days achieving nothing.  As a result, below are top 10 career profile websites that you should be looking at;

  • Glassdoor.com – has to be the number one career profile website on the internet right now. Not only does it provide, career profiles but you can actually see what others have written about the company and role.
  • InsideJobs.com – is a massive website that contains not only relevant career profiles for thousands of jobs, but also links to job boards where potentially you can find a similar role.
  • NCS Careers – is a UK Government site, that whilst is pretty basic, does have a huge amount of up to date information on careers and how to find a new role.
  • CareerOneStop – is the US version of the above website and whilst does not offer any career profile reviews, does offer a wealth of information on US jobs.
  • CareerProfiles.info – is one of the better career sites on the internet with a wealth of information both on career profiles and how to find that dream role.
  • WorkBC – is very similar to CareerProfiles above and provides good in-depth career reviews.
  • Vault – used to be Glassdoor’s number one competitor, however has since fallen out of favor, but still has a wealth of information that is useful.
  • CareerBuilder – is more of a job search board, however is comes with a very good blog and career profile reviews that are useful.
  • Monster.com – is probably the world largest job board but also comes with a wealth of information from career profiles to career reviews.
  • LinkedIn.com – we talk a lot about LinkedIn across this website and how to use it for your job search. It’s a fantastic resource with a wealth of information that you need to be aware of when choosing your career.

Career Aptitude Test

Career aptitude test’s have been designed to help you identify your personality and advise you on potential careers that you will be good at based on your personality. One point, you need to answer the questions honestly as you’re answers will directly impact the outcome.

​Remember, with this type of assessment, there is no right or wrong answer. The assessments are designed to evaluate how strongly you feel about a certain statement and then compare you’re answer with a population of similar candidates.

Free Vs. Paid Career Aptitude Tests

Typically there are two types of Career Aptitude Test’s, Free and Paid.  Free online career aptitude test’s will provide you some very basic information about your personality. Are they accurate? They are not going to be 100% accurate, but if you just want some career ideas they can add some real value.

Free Career Aptitude Assessments

Google, “Free Career Aptitude Test’s” and you’ll get literally thousands of replies. Below are five free online career aptitude tests that I think can add some real value in helping choose your career.

  • LiveCareer.com – offers a free career aptitude test has been designed to help you understand what kind of career that you will be good at and gives you some help to understand how you can find a role.
  • PrincetonReview – is a basic assessment which does not take very long to complete, but gives you both a list of career’s based on you’re answers and a description of what a day in the life of that career is actually like.
  • CareerColleges.com​​​​ – very similar to the above assessment and can be used to check that the above assessment is correct.
  • YourFreeCareerTest – contains 50 questions that should take around 10 minutes to complete with the outcome being that you’re provided with a list of careers that would suit your personality.
  • 123.Tests.com – Another free version of the MyersBriggs assessment below, the test contains 15 questions, with the outcome a list of potential careers based on your personality.

Paid Career Aptitude Assessments

The paid section is where things get a little more interesting and you start to get some real personality and career information. Again you can search in Google, however the three below are companies that are recommended.

  • MyPlan.com – come with a range of assessments based around personality and career profiling and has been designed to help candidates plan a more fulfilling life by making well-informed decisions about their education and careers.
  • Assessment.com – is well known and well used across the world. The assessment takes around 15-minutes.
  • MyersBriggs.org – is another well known assessment that is used all over the world. Rather than helping you to choose a career, it help’s you to work out the type of personality you have and therefore what you will want in a career.

Career Workshops

Career workshops are typically pre-organized groups that get together to share their experience and add value to each other’s job search. You will often find Colleges and Universities organize these types of events on a monthly basis and will invite both local companies who are hiring and senior business professionals who maybe able to help.

The are worth attending even if you have no idea what you want to do with your career.  Career workshops give you the opportunity to speak with professionals in a company and find out what life is actually like.  Remember, these types of work shops are one of the few opportunities where you can find out what it’s like to actually work in a company and may help you decide whether you want to work for a corporation, or whether corporate life is not for you, and you actually want to focus on your work-life balance.

Before Your Decision

  • Your degree Does Not Matter, The Grade Does – What you studied at University does not matter and should not affect your choice of careers. Log yourself onto LinkedIn.com, search for CEO and look at what these people did their degree in at College or University.The results are amazing and only prove that what you studied is not important. The grade however is important.  A lower grade will limit your potential opportunities.

Don’t Chase Money In Your Early Life

Try not to start a career for sole reason of making money. If you can make yourself a billionaire before your 30 then well done.  If you’re focused solely on making money, typically students leave college, jump into a sales role where they were promised $100K each year. On average only the very top 0.5% ever actually achieve this or anything close to it.

Even if you become a superstar sales professional, the problem comes when you hit you’re middle 30’s and don’t have the energy to put in the long hours required in a pure sales role, but don’t have the career profile or experience to switch careers to something less challenging.

Think About Jobs That Will Not Be Around in 10 Years

When you’re choosing your career path, you will need to make sure that you take into account jobs that will not be around in 15-to-20 years time. There is really no point in working hard for the next 20 years, to only find that when it’s your time to reap the rewards, the role no longer exists . Below are 10 examples that most likely will not be around in 20 years time;

  • Retail Cashier
  • Newspaper Delivery
  • Postal Worker
  • IT Trouble Shooters
  • Call Receptionists
  • Telesales Professional
  • Travel Agents
  • Fighter Pilots
  • Librarians
  • Bank Tellers

Still Have No Idea

If you have read the whole blog post and still don’t really know what you want to do, I have a solution for you – Temping.  Temping allows you to try out a number of different roles without being committed to a specific career.

Don’t worry about CV.  Many candidates think they will ruin their CV because they have had so many different jobs in a short period of time.  The truth is opposite, hiring managers will actually be impressed that you covered the market and chosen a career that you actually enjoy.  I would much prefer to hire a graduate who has explored the market and is interviewing for a role that they have done before and know than they enjoy.

Interning, Temping, Contracting and Interim

Interning really only applies to candidates that are still at college. Typically interns are working to experience what life is all about and for companies to find out what they’re like as an employee.  Once you’ve left University, rather than an internship, you should be looking for Temping opportunities.Temping is usually where a company pays you to work for a short period of time. The great thing about temping is the flexibility.  It allow you to try out a potential career path that you might enjoy.

Key Takeaways

Firstly don’t worry if you have no idea what you want to do with your working life. You’re not the first person to feel this way and you certainly will not be the last. Many people go as far as starting one job, only to realize they don’t enjoy it and decide to have a career change at some point during their working life.What is important is that you decide on a plan to move forwards and find your dream career. Think about the action points in the above sections and take action to move your career forwards.

Below are a selection of career profiles from across the website to help you choose a career that you’re going to enjoy.

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Nick Jones

My name Nick Jones, I am a professional Head-Hunter with over 20 years of experience working all over the world. I specialise in out-of-the-box job search strategies to get your CV directly to the hiring manager, thus skipping any ATS portals or recruiters who think they're important.

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