To be happy in your life and successful in career it is very important that you chose a career field that is right for you. Career advice can be helpful in choosing the right career field and job profile that is best suited to your ability, inclination and needs. Let's see how career advice can help in selecting the best suited career field.
Selecting the Right Career Field:
- Personal Inclination
When choosing a career field one of the first and most important things to consider is your personal inclination. Think about what you like to do in your idle time, which subjects you are good at, and what comes easily to you that others find difficult. Beside these there are some additional methods that can be of help in determining the career suited to you.
- Aptitude
Aptitude tests are standardized tests designed to check your aptitude, or lack there of, for a particular career line or job. These can help a career consultant determine if a particular job profile or career line is suitable for you or not.
- Psychological Profile
There are several tests that can be used to determine your psychological profile, this profile identifies your strengths and weaknesses and can be used to determine the right career line for you.
- Soft Skills
The skills like communication, leadership, conflict resolution etc are categorized as soft skills. Which job or career field would be suited for you is highly dependent on what soft skills you have.
- Job Availability
This is one of the most important factors to consider when choosing a career field. Find out how many jobs are available in a particular field. How much is the competition and how stable is the job market to get your dream job quickly.
- Available Job Profiles
A career field or line may have several job profiles associated with it. You should consider all the job profiles that are suitable to you and consider the advantages of each before making a choice. Career advice can help you with this decision by providing you information about individual job profiles.
- Required Skills and Technologies
Once you are considering the specific jobs, consider the skills and technologies associated with them. Before choosing a job profile consider how well the required skills and knowledge match your existing skill set and inclination. You should also consider the versatility of these skills. Some skills are more versatile as they can be useful for multiple job profiles. These are especially useful if you have to change your job or career later in future.
- Work Responsibilities
Find out what your day to day responsibility would be and if you would be happy doing it on a full time basis.
- Locations
Job location can be an important factor in deciding the suitability of a job for you. The job may require some or a lot traveling, there may be very few or no jobs available locally and you may have to shift to a new location for the job. You should consider these factors before making a decision. Career advice can be important as it provides you with the required information.
- Pay Scale
Career advice can provide you information about the typical pay scale of the jobs you are considering. This would help you decide if the job is suitable for you or not. You should also remember that the higher paying jobs are relatively fast paced most of the time. You should choose a career or job with the pay scale and pace that is suitable to you.
- Career Concerns
Beside the points mentioned above, there are some additional long term career concerns that you should keep in mind when making a career choice.
- Job Security
Some career fields are relatively more stable with greater job security. Always there is demands in these fields and that result in an increased job security. Although this should not be your sole concern, you should not ignore this either.
- Growth Prospects
Consider the growth prospect in a career field before choosing it. Some jobs have lower initial compensation but good growth rate. Career advice can provide important guidance and information about the growth rate in a particular career field.
- Transferable Skills
Transferable skills are useful in more than one job and can be useful in case of voluntary or forced career change. In general you should avoid job with fewer transferable skills as, with them your options would be much narrower if you have to make a job or career change later in your career.
- Time and Resources
Most career and jobs require some specialized training that requires an investment in time and resources. You should consider; first can you afford to invest this much time and resources and second does the eventual salary and job justify this investment. Career advice can provide important information about the required time and money and eventually expected salary, which is needed to make this decision.
- Competition
You should also consider the level of competition when choosing a career field. A higher level of competition will make the career challenging and decrease the job security.
So far we see that in order to make the right decision and choose the career that is best suited to you, you will need a lot of information about the careers in question as well as the job market. It is unlikely that you would have all this knowledge at the time when you need it the most. This makes the career advice very important in selecting the right field as it provides you with the guidance as well as the much needed information.
