Do you have doubts about the career path you chose? Are you having trouble choosing a career path? You’re not alone: Many people have a hard time choosing a career path or have doubts about the wisdom of their choice later down the line. The Bureau of Labor Statistics published a report in August 2019 that showed even Baby Boomers had trouble picking a career.

For detailed information contact Pritish Kumar Halder.

How to Choose the Right Career Path

Pros and cons

The report, “Number of Jobs Held, Labor Market Activity, and Earnings Growth among the Youngest Baby Boomers: Results from a Longitudinal Survey” showed:

  • Those born between 1957 and 1964, held an average of 12.3 jobs from the time they turned 18 through age 52.
  • Almost half of those jobs were held before the age of 24.
  • Thirty-six percent of jobs started by those aged 35 to 44 lasted less than a year.
  • Seventy-five percent of those jobs in the same age group lasted less than five years.
  • People in the survey—the same individuals who were surveyed over 37 years—worked an average of 78 percent of the weeks from the time they turned 18 years old until they were 52 years old.

How to Choose the Right Career Path

When you choose a major, look at all of the pros and cons, and then ask yourself: Can you see yourself working in that profession in 15 years? If so, where would you want to be in that profession? Look at the kind of advancement opportunities available for your chosen major while deciding on a career path. When you do choose a major, make sure you can use it as a stepping stone for different but similar careers. Or, choose a major that will help you climb the ladder more quickly.

7 Powerful Tips to Select The Right Career #CareerTips | JobCluster.com Blog

How to Decide on a Career Path

figuring out how to choose a career path, you should consider several things, especially whether you think you could do a specific line of work for many years. For more information please visit Pritish Kumar Halder ‘s page.

Top 7 Steps to Decide the Right Career Path

Choose a Career You Have a Strong Passion For

What type of work can you get lost in? What do you feel strongly about? What could you do every day and not get tired of it? List the activities you do that you love to spend time on. For example, if you love to watch crime dramas, or you enjoy researching legal issues, you might enjoy working as a legal assistant or paralegal. If you loved biology in high school, you might satisfy your passion by becoming a doctor. If you can’t get enough of professional sports, you might go into sports management. Or, if you can never seem to find enough time to ride your horses, you might look at a degree in equine studies or even as a veterinarian.

How to Decide on a Career Path | Post University

Know Your Strengths

While you can learn how to do something new, it’s much easier if you know what your strengths are. If you are great at math, you might choose a career in programming or science. If you are a logical thinker and will spend hours crafting a logical response, you might want to look at legal careers. If your forte is being able to create budgets or you love financial analysis, you might consider a degree in accounting or another finance degree.

Tips to choose your career path wisely - FIITJEE Blog

Choose a Career That Fits Your Personality

How well do you know yourself? If you are not sure whether you are introverted or you are an extrovert, if you use senses or intuition to interpret situations, if you make decisions based on thinking or feeling, and if you are open to new information or not, you should take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality inventory.

This test will help you determine whether you would be a good fit for certain professions when you are researching how to choose the right career. If you are empathetic and compassionate, you might look at a medical degree. However, if you are introverted, you might not be happy in a profession that requires you to be outgoing, such as sales or a legal profession where you have to speak in front of people often.

(Certain legal professions allow you to meet clients one-on-one, and you rarely go to court—which means you rarely have to speak in front of others.) And, if you’re an introvert, you might not do well in a career that has a loud environment or that has a lot of public contacts.

Choose Right Career Path | We Help Choosing Right Career | Chart My Career

Know What the Deal-Breakers Are

Different  professions require long hours. Others don’t require you to invest long hours but may have other cons, such as difficulty finding work at certain times of the year or requiring you to sit for many hours. Once you think you might have found the perfect profession, think about what you would do in a job in that profession. If you don’t mind long hours, then go for a medical degree or the law degree. If you prefer regular 8-hour days, you might consider becoming an architect or accountant, though accountants often have to work more than eight hours during tax time.

Am I Choosing the Right Career Path? - The Campus Career Coach

Traveling and Schedule Changes

Do you like to travel? If so, look for a career path that allows you to travel. Going into politics or certain law enforcement careers may require travel. If you prefer a set schedule because it’s easier to plan your personal life around a set schedule, then look at career paths that offer typical working hours, such as the legal profession or an accountant.

8 Points On How To Choose The Right Career Path - Centurion University

Carry your skills with experience

Ensure that your skills do not go obsolete and decide a direction where your skills can be continuously utilized in line with your experience. Keep upgrading your skills through learning, reading, and training as the market is competitive and requires expertise in every niche. Research the market to what are the hot skills in the market in line with your line of work. Y2K gave the opportunities to many who had the relevant skills necessary to excel in the job to fix the bugs.

Finding the Right Career - HelpGuide.org

Flexibility

How flexible do you need to be? Some people can do the same job day in and day out, and prefer that. Others prefer a career that offers the flexibility of working different hours, whether the hours are late at night or during the day. Medical professionals often have to work different shifts instead of a set shift. Law enforcement also has areas that allow you to work different shifts.

Career Planning - sparkdata

 SWOT analysis

At any point in your career, it is wise to do a SWOT analysis of yourselves which means analyzing your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. List your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in four quadrants and keep revisiting them. Be positive about your strengths, strengthen your weak areas, research and identify opportunities that may help you grow in your career, and at the same time beware of threats that may cause any harm. A careful analysis of your character, potential, professional skills, and guidance will drive you in the right direction of growth and success in your career.

How to Decide on a Career Path: 15 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow

Money Talks

Some people just want to help others, so they might go into politics or some other form of civil service. Others have the American Dream firmly entrenched in their minds and would do better to look at a career path that allows for extensive advancement or a major that helps when you want to start a business. Real estate, the legal profession, accounting, business, administrative law, and many others are a step up the ladder to a high-level corporate position or business ownership.

Benefits

Most people want excellent benefits, especially those that plan on raising a family. While most careers offer benefits, some do not—and some offer better benefits than others. When researching a career path, check benefit packages in different professions. Some things to take into consideration include:

  • The size of most companies in the profession. The Family and Medical Leave Act applies to public companies and private companies with more than 50 employees.
  • Some companies offer matching retirement contributions.
  • Many have a health insurance program.

When choosing a career, benefit consideration matters. After all, some jobs just don’t offer extensive benefits. If you plan on working for yourself or if you plan on working in a field such as real estate, which uses independent contractors, you may have to pay out of pocket for benefits, and you may not get benefits afforded to larger companies, such as the Family and Medical Leave Act.

What Job Should I Have? How to Choose a Career in 8 Steps

Location

Whether you choose a location and then a career path or vice versa, you should look to see what your chosen profession’s average salary is in that location. That could be a deal-breaker for some people. For example, the average salary for a legal assistant—across the United States—is $51,740 per year. However, when you look at the individual states, there is quite a discrepancy in salaries. The salary for a legal assistant in California averages $61,800. If you were to go into this profession in Arkansas, the average salary is $37,500.

How to Choose the Right Career Path for Yourself?

Boredom

Many people do not consider boredom when they choose a profession. Though boredom is not the only reason people might change professions later in life, it often plays a part in many career change decisions. People could find professions boring for many reasons, including:

  • Advancement does not exist or is very slow due to limited opportunities.
  • You are performing the same demanding tasks every day, which can lead to burnout.

How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You) — Wait But Why

You are being held back by a supervisor, boss, or company owner because he or she is promoting friends and relatives. This is more likely to happen if you work for a small, family-owned company with little room for advancement because of limited positions.

Your co-workers and bosses do not foster a team atmosphere, so everyone feels as if they should stay in their own cubby/office and not help others.

And the list goes on.

You can help combat the boredom problem by choosing a career path that provides for plenty of changes, whether it is traveling, schedule changes, or advancement. Or you can choose a profession that offers different work. For example, a real estate agent sees different homes and people all the time. A legal assistant works on cases with different facts. It’s hard to get bored in these types of positions

Go With the Flow

Choosing a major might seem difficult, but if you look at the various aspects of it and research different professions before you choose, you can use your major as a stepping stone to get to the ultimate goals in your life. And, never forget, you can always change your career later in life.

Be optimistic

When you are finally trained and ready to take up your dream job, be very optimistic in your approach and start taking the necessary actions to boost your career. Prepare yourself for the change and drastic shifts that come your way in your career. Keep yourselves focused and cherish every single opportunity that comes your way. Remember, your prospective employer is always looking out for the best in you in pursuit of skilled and educated workers to contribute to their organization.

Conclusion

Choosing the right career path is certainly challenging and demanding. However, all it needs is sheer fortitude and an open mind. Having a well-defined career objective helps you in landing the right job. Hard work, planning, and self-reflection are the three crucial factors, which help you in setting yourself on a successful and fulfilling career path.

Reference

https://www.simplilearn.com/top-7-steps-to-decide-the-right-career-path-ccr9-article

https://post.edu/blog/challenge-choosing-career-path/