Take A Free Career Test
- Find your Perfect Job / Career
- Top 10 Careers for you
- Achieve more success
- Are you a natural leader?
- What you need from a career
How do I choose a career?
Choosing the best career is one of the most important choices we can make in life, and yet for many it is not a properly considered or even moderately researched choice. Currently the average person changes careers 7 times throughout their working life, which strongly indicates that career choice is not being given the consideration that it deserves. Unfortunately the effect of changing careers so frequently is that you lose any ground you have gained through experience and training, and you essentially have to start from the bottom each time.
Some of the best reasons for a considered career choice are as follows:
- Feel more satisfied and happier with the job you have to do for the vast majority of the week.
- Achieve more recognition and success in your career due to it matching your abilities and areas of interest.
- Stay in the same career for longer and hence achieve higher pay and better skills.
- Avoid the stress of changing careers, finding new jobs and starting again.
Below are some tips to help you choose the right career
- Research possible career options
- Try out potential career choices
- Talk to people in careers you are interested in
- Take a career test
Find out as much as you can about the different jobs and careers that are out there. There are many lists of careers and different jobs available online that can give you a broader perspective of the choices that are available to you.
Try before you buy! When you have narrowed the list down to a few potential candidates, try to line up some unpaid (or paid if you can manage it) work experience in each field. This will give you a real world view of if you will like the day to day activities of the types of jobs you will end up in. However, keep in mind that you are evaluating the work itself and not neccessarily the workplace or people that you end up working with on your work experience.
It might sound basic, but often it helps to just talk to people who are in the jobs that you think you might like. People are generally happy to tell you what they like and dislike about their job.
Career tests (like the one at the top of this page) can provide you with valuable insight into your areas of interest and strengths and weaknesses. They can help you to clarify what it is that you enjoy doing and what areas you are proficient in. Our test is based on the well research ORVIS scale and helps you by matching up your areas of interest and skills with potential career choices.
Sample Career Report
You have a keen interest in leadership and greatly enjoy and seek out leadership roles. Any future career choices need to include the capacity for a leadership role, even if they do not start that way. While you are able to handle a moderate amount of disorganization, you do prefer that things around you are organized and well thought out. Choose jobs that require a moderate amount of organization and planning. You enjoy helping others and will value a career that gives you chances to help other people. However, it is not neccessary for you to feel like you are assisting others all the time and you need time to work on your own skills too.