Exploring Roles
When making a career choice you have to learn about yourself, find out which occupations are a good match, research each of your options and pick the best one, and then make a plan to reach your goal.
Sounds simple, right? There are hundreds of occupations from which to choose, so it can be difficult to pick one — especially if you have no idea what you want to do, or if many things appeal to you. It’s important therefore to take the time and effort to research your options.
Information
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A good starting point is to create a list of careers that you find interesting and appear to be a good fit for you.
Next, gather some basic information about each occupation on your list. Do some preliminary fact-finding that will allow you to narrow down your list. This will include looking at a job description and labour market information, including job outlook, median salary and educational and training requirements.
After learning about all the occupations on your list you will find that several of them don't appeal to you anymore. This could be for a variety of reasons. For example, you may decide that you wouldn't enjoy the job duties of a particular occupation or that you can't or don't want to meet the educational and training requirements. The earnings may be lower than you thought they would be or the job outlook tells you that employment opportunities will be poor. After completing your preliminary research you will be left with a list that contains several careers on it.
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After you narrow down your list of career choices, your research should become more involved. You will want to learn what working in the field is really like before you actually work in it. The best way to do this is to talk to people who are already doing the role.
- Figure out who, in your network, knows people who work in the field or fields in which you are interested, or ask around to see if any of them have contacts who do.
- Set up informational interviews with anyone who has experience working in the careers you are considering. Those whose experience is more recent make better subjects.
- Consider doing an internship to learn about a work field and get experience.
After you complete your in-depth research, you should be able to determine which career is a good match for you. Try not to get too frustrated if you can't make a decision by this point. You may not have enough information yet. Continue to do more research until you can comfortably choose the best career for you.
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There are also a number of career matching tools available on-line which suggest jobs and careers based on the answers you give to questions.
- Prospects Career Planner available at: www.prospects.ac.uk/links/pplanner
- Career Explorer available at: https://www.careerexplorer.com