CHOOSING A CARREER

CHOOSING A CAREER

By Joshua T. Abu

Introduction:

The essence of this presentation is to highlight effective ways of selecting a career in life. It is my hope that you find this brief helpful.

I wish to start this presentation with some quotations which I believe have some relevance to the topic under discussion and I hope you will ponder on their essence and meaning long after this session. These quotations are as follows:

“It is Choice – not chance – that determines your destiny.” – Jean Nidetch

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” – Les Brown

“Choose a job you’ll love and you’ll never have to work another day in your life.” – Confucius – Chinese Philosopher

Perhaps the best takeoff point is to state what career is. Simply put, career, is chosen pursuit, a profession or occupation. It is the general course or progression of one’s working life or one’s professional achievement and usually considered to pertain to remunerative work (and sometimes also formal education). It refers to an individual’s work and life roles over their lifespan.

Career choices have become more difficult today than at any other time in all of man’s history; and this can be attributed to a few obvious reasons. Firstly, there are countless more options to choose from; then, career descriptions are changing and becoming more flexible. Furthermore, the level of expectation in various careers is constantly rising. Many young people however, think they know the right way to go about choosing a career or occupation. Unfortunately, more often than not, they end up choosing one that is totally inappropriate and most unsatisfying. You must therefore be willing to know and to do what it takes to make the right choice.

Looking closely, it is highly probable that your interests, what you enjoy doing and the things you spend time on, would most probably have already influenced many of the choices made in your life. Perhaps the friends you have made as well as the personal skills you have developed, and the subjects you have taken in school among others might have had their influences as well. Thus, your interests may very well be a huge influence on your career choice. Similarly there are your values, the things in your life that you consider to be important. Values, often time referred to as one’s motivators, are what give purpose to a job in the eyes of the individual who does it.

Your values are therefore likely to be a major factor in deciding on a career or a career path within a particular field. For example, one whose values include strong leadership, team membership, security, prestige, promotion and risk taking may tend towards a career in the military; while helping others, making selfless sacrifices, non-priority to material benefits and being independent may be the values that drive another to choose a career as an aid worker. Consequently, you may ask, ‘what steps could I take to help ensure I choose a good and satisfying career? This is the main thrust of this presentation.

Deciding what career you want to pursue, is one of the decisions you'll be making as an adolescent. There is a wide range of careers to choose from - all of which are appealing - making the decision more difficult. Career planning is however not something that should be rushed into. You find many young people in universities today, changing from one course to another, because they can no longer cope with it, and end up spending more years than they would have spent in getting a university education, if only they had taken a little time to plan their career before getting into the university. Career planning and choice, is therefore very essential before one starts life as an adult. Here are some things you'll need to consider before deciding about a career:

Steps to Choosing a Career:

1.      Early Approach: Start early. Start way back from secondary school. Between choices of arts, sciences or commercials, choose subjects you are comfortable with, not those you can cope with. Do those you love not just those you like. An effective combination of them could shed light and reveal what you are to do in career and other walks of life in the future.

2. Find out what you love and would love doing (Know your values - Self Awareness): The first stage of Career Choice is Self Awareness. You must first get to know yourself. Ask yourself questions about what you would love to do. Find out whether you have to go to school to accomplish them or they are just by the side. What do people say about you? These should be a probable guide to helping you select your career. Self awareness involves looking at your SKILLS, VALUES, INTERESTS and PERSONALITY and analyzing where your strengths and weaknesses lie.

Your values will always come to play in whatever decisions you make. In choosing a career, you have to decide what means most to you, i.e.: Do you want a lot of responsibilities? Do you like teamwork? Do you want to work in a 'big' office? Do you like working with children, adults, and the poor or less privileged? What compensation do you want from this job - is it the money, security, adventure/excitement, personal fulfillment, etc. Your values will greatly affect your answers to these questions and ultimately the career you choose.

You can: Choose work that brings you alive, meet your financial needs, and create a fulfilling and inspiring vision. All it takes is discovering who you really are. As people grow up their essence gets buried beneath layers of fears, beliefs, and social expectations. Fulfilling – career - choices will help you put these aside and make decisions based on who you really are. Self-knowledge is critical. Most people limit themselves to a superficial survey of their strengths, skills and interests. This was sufficient for a satisfactory decision when there was a narrow range of career paths or choices. Today the world is overflowing with new opportunities just as it is uncertain and ever changing. In this ocean of possibilities, superficial self-knowledge of oneself is no longer enough for success. Something drastic is needed to navigate the inevitable storms and reach your career objectives – what is required is deep self-knowledge. This is not about your strengths or skills but the essence of your being.

The next necessary thing to do is to Identify your Skills. Everything you do involves one skill or the other. Things like fixing the fault in your cassette player, writing an article, drawing or planning an event, all require specific skills. Make a list of activities that you enjoy doing and list the skill(s) that each one requires. Look at this list it's likely that you'll have skills prevalent in one or more areas. Match the prevalent skills with jobs you think require these skills. For example, if your list shows you have penchant for building things or fixing faulty items, you may want to consider a career in Engineering; or if your skills relate to talking with people, you might want to consider being an Actor, a Counselor, or a Psychologist.

Having identified your skills you will necessarily need to get the right education. Without it, you'll be totally ill-equipped on how to make a success of your chosen career. What are your best subjects? What are your worst? Why? Make sure your reactions are to the subject and not to a teacher that you particularly dislike.

3. Examine your environment (Opportunity Awareness): Once you have done some preliminary self analysis, and identified your skills and have come up with possible career choices, the next step is to gather information about each choice. You will need to get facts such as: how much education is required (in terms of cost and time - do not start what you cannot finish); what activities are to be performed on the job; what are your prospects, i.e. chances of success; what are the career opportunities, i.e. does it involve things that you like to do, or chances for personal growth and development, etc.

Many jobs are open to graduates of any degree subject (we have seen that in the banking sector), and it's important not to only focus on the jobs related to your degree or subject of study. Early in your course/study, you should look at the Work Experience open to you as they will guide you into knowing the prospects and opportunities.

Find out what is suitable and what pertains to your present socio-cultural, economic and political environment. Some disciplines are just more suitable in some countries and choice locations of the world. Your career should be a response to your environment. Note though that if your career is not feasible in one location, it could however be feasible in another. 

4. Make Research (before making a decision): Just like you would do before making an investment and when choosing a wife or business partner, you need to research and find out about the career you want to venture into. Ask questions from those pursuing it as an academic field or those practicing it as professionals. Talk to those already working in your chosen career area. Find out whether it really fits into what you want to do or whether or not you can really cope with it. It is better to test the water before jumping into the pool. Work shadowing (spending a day with) a person in the career you are considering is the next best thing to actually doing a job, to find out what it is like. Of course, the other important part in making decisions is discussing it with other people. Friends, family and teachers/tutors can all play important parts here. The final process of career planning is Taking Action. It involves: Finding out about the EMPLOYERS that offer the types of jobs you are interested in, preparing APPLICATIONS and attending INTERVIEWS and perhaps even taking APTITUDE TESTS and attending SELECTION CENTRES. 

5.      Experiment: Try it out. Also try out other things. You want to be a lawyer? Fine. Try joining the debating society. Visit a court and see whether you can replicate those same approaches to defend your kid brother when he has just taken more than one piece of meat from a pot of stew.

6.      Focus on your advantages over others. Look at the things you can do quite easily that others cannot do with ease (where you comparative advantage). Those things that you can do effortlessly, and naturally flowing out of you and attracting a lot of commendation from others. Your natural gifts and talents could form a good foundation for your choosing a career.

7.      Know where you are going: Rome was not built in a day they say. It is better to make progress whilst also working to get what one wants than to be stagnant. Your career objectives could make you to do some things that are not what you originally intend but are foundational to where you are going in the long run, a kind of stepping stone. A candidate with his eyes on the presidential ticket might start at first being a councilor before climbing the ladder to get to where he ultimately wants to be. You can start small but just know what you want, where you are going and what you are doing.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, I wish to emphasize the fact that to be successful in whatever you do, you need to know the Three Ps of success - Preparation, Patience, and Perseverance. The first P (preparation) has already been outlined above. Patience they say is a virtue. Good success does not happen overnight. Things don't always happen when you want them to. You must be patient. Finally and most importantly, you must learn to persevere. There are bound to be roadblocks and obstacles; people may try to make you derail and give a thousand and one reasons why you won't be successful. A quitter they say never wins, and a winner, never quits. A song from an old movie says climb every mountain, cross every stream; follow every river, till you find your dream... If your mind can conceive it and your heart can believe it, you can achieve it. Armed with this knowledge and a faith in God, you can turn minuses into pluses and stumbling blocks into stepping stones.