Finding a career path through career development and change

INTRODUCTION

Finding a career is quite a difficult path to dread. Especially when an individual’s desire is to stick to one career choice. Yes, it is possible to have a couple of career choices. Therefore, it is easier for a person with more career choices to decide on a path.

A lot of career coaches have fared well in their own fields. Because they have found interest in grooming people on the path of their career. Good career coaches have helped in building efficient and effective entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs. Well, we will look at career coaches elaborately later in this article.

The objective of this article is to help you in finding a career path that is befitting to your objective. If you stick around, you should be able to understand better

1. Definition of Career,
   1. Features of a Career
   2. What a Career path is,
   3. What a Career choice is,
2. How to choose a Career,
3. Career Development,
4. How to change a Career (in case you lose interest in the former)

It will interest you to know that many career choices are made out of desperation. And many others are made out of ignorance. To buttress, many people choose a career because their friends are making such choices. Such desperation has led many into making wrong career choices. Similarly, many other people choose a career without knowing their interests. Lack of self-awareness will make choosing the right career difficult.

At this point, it will be appropriate to attempt to define a career.

WHAT IS A CAREER?

A Career can be seen as that part of a person’s life that is concerned with the choice of work (both employable and entrepreneurial) and has room for progress to be made. A Career involves every matter relating to work in a person’s life within a period of time. In most cases, it begins from the educational background to build up into a full-fledged occupational course.

Some people are trained, certified, and licensed to practice a line of work – for this set, a Career is a profession; while for those that are employed by an organization – a career is an occupation for them.

Some others are trained in a skill they exhibit and make a livelihood – A career can be said to be a vocation.

Yet, others are able to start a venture and are able to sustain it – they can refer to Career as a business.

Features Of A Career

A chosen career path should be able to drive you into any of the following goals:

1. Progression: Any career you find yourself treading on must enable you to grow and improve on your capabilities as it relates to that career. As you carry out tasks, it gives you experience and exposes you to the pros and cons in that field. You should know what you are expected to do better or the things you shouldn’t do at all.
2. Opportunity: When you grow and you learn from what you do, you are presented with bigger opportunities that should suit your current talent disposition. More doors become open for you, and you decide which you should walk into
3. Timeframe: You reach your career goals within a time frame; whether it is for a lifetime, or for 10 years, or even just a year. You can measure the achievement of a career by the period within which it is implemented.
4. Reward: Choosing a career comes with the expectation of rewards; either monetary, material, or internal fulfillment. As you grow in your career, you get to enjoy promotions, which come with incentives. Some appreciate the money that comes with it, others prefer the status, while others crave the fulfillment that comes with it.

A person should witness all of the above when they are in pursuit of a career in any field.

What A Career Path Is

A career path refers to a reduced group of jobs that are cut across the line of similarity and require a similar set of skills to fit into them. A career path is not the career in itself, it is a cluster of careers that can be changed in between easily. Deciding on a career path helps a great deal in finding a career. A person can easily maneuver between careers that are in the same cluster, i.e, career path.

What A Career Choice Is

A career choice is a particular job, business, or a set of one or both that a person decides to take on. Accordingly, a career choice entails a singular direction within which a set of choices reside. A career choice in many cases leans on a career path because the path within which a choice is made has already been clustered.

HOW TO FIND A CAREER

For many, making a choice on finding a career poses a great challenge especially if certain patterns are not followed. However, finding a career is possible and it can be easy as well. I have laid down a few things you can observe to help you in finding a career for yourself. Many people have tried these processes and it has proven to be productive and I believe you will find it resourceful.

Do A Self Assessment

Carry out an assessment of yourself before throwing yourself out on finding a career or a career path.  A self-assessment is an evaluation after having an inward look at one’s self. This activity involves checking what your abilities are, what your weaknesses are, and what your interests are. It could also involve an in-depth search of the successes and failures an individual has recorded and the strategies employed to make better choices.

Self-assessment is between people and their instincts because there are no third parties to score or grade them. Finding a career is largely dependent on the assessment an individual carries about himself. When you know what you are capable of, you can easily choose an industry where you can be effective and a department where you will be efficient.

To help you find objective answers about yourself, you can employ a number of the following:

1. Third-party feedback

Feedbacks are a vital tool in self-evaluation because they act as a mirror that helps you see those parts of yourself that you cannot see on your own. Third-party feedback involves asking other people questions about yourself whether in form of questionnaires or direct oral interviews. Family members, friends, and classmates are good suggestions, to begin with because it takes people who know you well to give vital responses.

2. Personal Meditation Session

Meditation involves the practice of deep and focused concentration which keeps a person within the whims of imagination. Meditation is a powerful tool in enhancing productivity and self-discovery. People have gone as far as involving in meditative yoga in order to unlock the power of meditation. Frequent practice of meditation helps in finding out more about one’s self, thereby aiding in finding a career (and career path)

3. Personality Tests

Personality Tests have also been proven to be another effective way of self-discovery. It is a way of responding to a number of laid down questions designed by psychologists to help you have a better understanding of your personality. Personality tests help you find out so much about yourself because it is designed solely for self-awareness. You can participate in a personality test by clicking here

Highlight Personal Goals

Another important task to engage yourself in finding a career is to highlight the things you desire to achieve within a specific timeframe. This enables you to identify the path on which you desire to travel with regards to your career journey. Your goals might be to contribute to the fight against poverty or to contribute to excellent administrative tasks. It could also be a burden about prudence with finance within the work environment. Your personal goals could be anything you have grown to desire and the things you want to achieve within a said period.

The point of highlighting personal goals comes after personal assessment because some of these goals are most likely to be discovered during this period. Identifying them and writing them down is key in finding a career for yourself.

Carry Out Career Quizzes

Career quizzes are sets of questions that are laid down to test what kind of personality you possess, and what set of jobs match that personality. This test helps you identify your preferences and makes it easy for you to recognize what your fit is.

The career quiz will require the objectivity of your response in order to tailor you towards the right direction. Therefore, you will need to give an honest response to every question within the test.

Career quizzes are important in finding a career, especially for young adults who have probably just finished school or have never had the experience of working.

Click on the link to carry out a career quiz and discover what professions or occupations fit your personality.

Go For Guidance Counseling

You need to find a trained counselor who will guide you through a number of steps that should help you in finding a career. Counselors are resourceful on the road to making a career choice. They have a way of making you see a lot of things you wouldn’t see by yourself under normal circumstances.

Guidance Counselors are trained and in most cases, paid to help students reach and maximize their potentials. This is an important resource that you should utilize if you must succeed in the quest to finding a career. Even though in most cases, guidance counselors work towards the good of students in general, you can engage them on a deeper and personal basis. It might mean that you have to pay for the extra services, make that move anyway, it may prove to be worth it.

Seek For A Career Coach

Career Coaches are another important aid for you in finding a career or career path. While the guidance counselor plays a vital part in nurturing you towards a befitting career path, the career coach helps you sustain performance within the path. The career coach helps you make informed decisions about sticking to the career of your choice. They are like the icing on the cake, or better still, like the cement that plasters the building. Whichever way you understand it, see career coaches as an important resource for finding a career.

CAREER DEVELOPMENT IN FINDING A CAREER

Career development strategy is important in finding a career. You have not arrived even if you get to arrive at finding a career that you love. Building a Career Development Plan is therefore an important aspect of ensuring that you grow and remain relevant within the domain of your career path. The expectation of success and fulfillment is a key factor that should push you into working out a career development plan.

Many employees are stuck in the web of complacency with the satisfaction of their current jobs or their next expected promotion. To live beyond such a life of mediocrity, it is therefore important, to begin with setting up a career development strategy. Career development is important. See it like a vision you need to create in order to help you reach the peak of your career.

Consider doing the following to help you in developing a career for yourself:

Identify A Career Path

I have partly discussed what a career path is earlier in this article, and I mentioned that:

A career path refers to a reduced group of jobs that are cut across the line of similarity and require a similar set of skills to fit into them. A career path is not the career in itself, it is a cluster of careers that can be changed in between easily.

Identifying where your career path lies is a major step in helping you figure out what areas you need to strengthen and become efficient at. You need to highlight those groups of jobs that are similar or can complement each other.  If you are able to find them, you should become swift in educating yourself towards growth in that direction.

Personal Development

Personal development is also very key in helping you strategize on your career development path. Be sure to keep working on yourself in order to become a better version of yourself. Identify your major competencies and work towards making yourself updated and valuable. Personal development makes it easy for you to fit into that line of work you desire to align yourself with.

When you find your career path, you should also build and strengthen those skills that make you a fit for the career path. Give yourself a challenge and dare to grow bigger than your former self. Personal development is not an easy road to take because it stretches you to strive beyond comfort. It is not a path trodden by lazy people, so if you are lazy.

Volunteering

Volunteering is the act of offering your skills, resources, and time as an act of service for free. This service could be to an individual, group, organization, or community. When volunteering, payment or compensation is not expected in return. However, there are cases where volunteers are paid stipends for the services they render. It is upheld that volunteers are not paid for the tasks they carry out.

Volunteering helps in exercising your capabilities and strengthening them to help you become effective and relevant. When you volunteer, you render a service to humanity and you also build experience for yourself. Doing this helps in shaping you to be a fit for your career path.

There are a number of things that you stand to benefit from volunteering:

Experience

You build a wealth of experience and you get to learn how to do new things as you are engaged on the job. Job experiences are needed by most employers, and volunteering one major way of acquiring experience. Your knowledge of the job increases and you become a valuable resource in the field.

Network

You get to meet new people from volunteering. People who are skilled in various fields. Such people can become of help to you when you require the services they provide. Having a network of people can also bring about referrals for you. Perhaps, you are good at a thing, it takes people who know you do them to inform others who don’t know you.

Fulfillment

You can find fulfillment and satisfaction just by volunteering. When you see yourself achieving tasks, it gives you joy and a sense of purpose. Fulfillment is a great reward many people don’t give attention to. However, it helps you find rest and it eases the tension of depression.

Updated Knowledge

When you volunteer, you keep yourself updated with trends within the industry that are in that line of work. Getting to know the pros and cons within the work environment is an advantage that can work for you

Keeping Fit

Volunteering helps in keeping you physically fit because you are busy and involved with carrying out tasks. It eludes the trauma of vices that comes with idleness in most cases.

Opportunities

Volunteering gives you the opportunity to be retained as a full-time staff if you are volunteering with an organization. It opens doors for referrals in case you volunteer for individuals or groups

There is so much that you can benefit from volunteering and the list is inexhaustive. All you need to do is to get yourself out and find a place where you can volunteer.

Achievable Tasks

Another thing to take note of in your career development is to assign yourself achievable tasks that you should carry out within a timeframe. This is like giving yourself assignments and supervising yourself to carry them out. This option requires discipline to effectively carry out. If you lack discipline, you might want to skip this option. Or you might want to embark on self-discipline therapy to help you recover your lost self-discipline.

Note that the tasks you assign to yourself should be something you believe you are capable of achieving. They should also be tasks that can be achieved within a short period of time in order to avoid the temptation of aborting before completion. Some of such tasks may include:

• Learning how to drive a car
• Taking online classes
• Joining Support Groups
• Taking a ‘Talk Walk’. A talk walk is a walk you take where you speak to the environment as though you are making a public presentation
• Startup a blog where you write about yourself or your inspirations. Better still, you can begin to journal what comes to your mind.

CAREER CHANGE

Career change refers to the shift from one’s current job to another line of work that differs from the former.  Many people find themselves in situations where they have to move from one line of work to another. The resultant effect of career change leaves many people traumatized and they become frustrated.

Career change is like restoring hope for many who might have worked hard on the path of finding a career and succeeded. Only to be faced with the plight of having to change that career.

A career change could result from a number of things which could include:

• Low remuneration in the current job
• Long term at a static position
• Poor working conditions
• High demand from the current job
• Lack of fulfillment from current job
• The adventurous quest to explore other lines of work.

Changing a career can result from any of the above or even other reasons. It is important and can serve as a new way of finding a career. At least, it is better to have a career change than to stick to a career where you are overwhelmed by a lack of satisfaction. Career change has also helped people to discover a path where they are more resourceful than the initial line they were.

CONCLUSION

Finding a career is an important aspect for the young and old alike. It patterns the world in such a way that makes a person effectively contributes to himself and to society. Making a career choice can make or mar a person’s sense of purpose. This is why I will advise that this article be studied and utilized by anyone seeking to find a career.