The ultimate guide to choosing your
You need help choosing your career path. There are so many different paths you can take, and you are struggling to pick one. You are…
You need help choosing your career path. There are so many different paths you can take, and you are struggling to pick one. You are unfamiliar with what is out there. You have a ton of skills and passions, but you can’t find a career path that matches well with what you are good at.
Your entire life, people have told you to find a job where you love going to work, so you don’t have to work a day in your life. But, how are you supposed to get this if you don’t know which careers are out there that mesh well with your skills?
Like you, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I didn’t know what jobs were out there. The jobs I thought I knew about, I really knew nothing about. I needed help figuring out what was out there so I could set my sights on what career I wanted to pursue. To do this, I read job descriptions, read company websites, and watched “day-in-the-life of a *job name*” videos on YouTube. Guess what, nothing that I researched online was realistic! Job descriptions are vague and company websites don’t tell you much.
The number one way to learn about a specific career, company or job is to talk to people. Network.
2 common career path struggles
Two things people struggle with when it comes to career paths are that (1) they need help deciding between career paths or (2) they need help learning about which career paths are out there. For the first group, they are stuck on two or more career paths and need help choosing. For the second group, they may be familiar with some career paths, but they felt they really haven’t found anything that is interesting and matches their skill sets. Which group do you fall under?
Deciding between career paths
You have narrowed your career search to 2 or 3 careers. Now you need help choosing between them. Here’s what you need to do.
Contact 3 people from each career — Reach out to 3 people and set up times to talk. How? Check out Your guide to write the best cold email. Talk to these people. Ask them any questions you want. Generally, people want to help people out. This is especially true for college students. So, definitely mention you are a college student.
Ask questions you are curious about — Don’t hold back. No questions are dumb! If you have something on your mind, just ask. Think about it. It’d be much better to ask a pressing question that’s on your mind than to start your career within whichever profession and learn about it on the job.
Create a pros-cons list — After each of your conversations, write down the pros and cons of each career path. What did you like? What didn’t you like?
Choose your path — After you have your pros-cons list, choose your path. If you are super indecisive like me, you may need to speak to more people. Repeat the process, and then make your decision.
Learning about career paths
You need help learning about what is out there. You’re familiar with some career paths, but nothing really jumps out at you. The best way to learn about new career paths is to network. You can do this in two ways:
Talk to people you know — Ask them “what am I good at?” Or “I am good at x, x, and x. What career would best suit me?”
Build your network — Maybe there is a field or career that has always interested you. Contact someone in that field and talk to them! You’ll never really learn about it unless you speak with someone who lives it. You can easily find these people on LinkedIn. Use the strategy I outline in Get an interview with any company you want for help on how to search on LinkedIn.
Conclusion
Remember. Nothing is set in stone. You can always change your career path! But, for all you people who need help narrowing down your search, these steps are super helpful!