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Choosing an Occupation*
Determining the kind of work you want to do is an essential prelude to the job hunt. If you don’t know what it is you want, an employer may put you where they need you, which means that you may end up with a job that you hate, a job that has little chance of advancement, or a job with frequent layoffs and little security.
First and foremost, the process of choosing a suitable occupation requires research. That is, you must do your homework, not only on prospective occupations, employers, and industries, but on yourself. In fact, this is the first step in determining which occupation best suits your unique talents, skills, and interests. The following steps, which contain various brainstorming exercises, may help you in this decision-making process.
Step One: Assess Your Skills
A skill is any ability that helps you to work with people, things, and data. Mentoring, negotiating, instructing, speaking, and serving are some skills that are frequently used with people. Setting up, operating or controlling, and driving, are skills that could be used with things, and computing, compiling, copying, and analyzing are data-type skills. What skills do you presently have? What things do you do well and enjoy? After listing as many as you can think of, identify six that you possess and consider your favorite and strongest skills. These are the basic building blocks of your strongest skills and interests. They are the ones you perform best, enjoy the most, and feel the most confident about.
What time limitations are you considering in your future plans? For example, where would you like to be in your life in ten years? If additional schooling or training is required to carry out your plans, how many years will it take to finish?
Step Two: Analyze Your Skills
Refer back to your answers to the previous four questions to answer the following questions:
Under which category – people-related, thing-related, or data-related – do most of your skills fall? Do you prefer to work with people, things, or data? Or all three? In what priority?
Step Three: Arrange and Apply Your Skills to the Workplace
A career is a flexible combination of skills – which can be arranged and rearranged in a number of different tantalizing ways. Once you have identified the skills you possess and have arranged them in order of priority according to what you enjoy most, you are ready to determine what kind of careers best match this arrangement. In other words, at this point in the decision-making process you are looking for answers to this question: What occupation or occupations will use as many of my strongest skills, and on as high a level as possible?
There are many ways one could begin this step. Listed below are some suggestions for getting information and networking:
Ask the experts.
Ask your librarian (or business librarian), counselors at the appropriate department of your local State Employment office, friends knowledgeable in the fields that interest you, and consultants to the fields you are interested in what occupations use the skills that you have.
Request an Informational Interview.
Consult with a number of people who are active in the field of work you are interested in. Request an informational interview with professionals who are employed in the field you are considering. Ask questions about what they do, the various kinds of tasks and skills required to do their job, and the aspects of it that they particularly enjoy. However, before the interview, keep in mind that you may be coming back to some of these men and women in a different role later on (if they are in the area you want to work in), so it would be helpful to leave a good impression behind you. Dress well and conduct yourself quietly, confident that you would be an asset to any organization you ultimately decide to serve in.
Research publications.
Many, if not most, fields have professional journals. Ask your local librarian to assist you in getting your hands on these. Follow all leads that they may suggest to you.
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