3 Essential Tips to Choose Your Career Path

The choice of the future profession is a step that defines the adulthood of each person. Which career to choose and how to be in demand on the labor market in the future? What job will bring both pleasure and financial well-being? It is complicated for an adolescent to answer these questions because he is not familiar with the world of careers and has never worked in his life. According to EssayShark, it is even more difficult for an adult to find his vocation and drastically change his life if the choice of a profession in his teenage years was unsuccessful. Today, we are going to give you some tips on choosing your future career and questions to consider.Career Guidance

Teenagers frequently have no idea how to choose their future according to their preferences and traits of character. That's when the career guidance steps into the game. Teachers at schools and parents can help the youth to make a decision about their career without obtruding their opinions. Various tests and surveys included in the guidance set the right answers that stimulate the soul-searching and looking for your own answers.

The classical career guidance is based on three main domains:

• personal interests and preferences: something close to you, something you like, something you're passionate about in any activity.
• skills and competencies: what you do best, the areas and topics in which you are best at. Often this area is related to the first, but it is not always the case.
• personality traits: for example, the temperament, which is considered an innate feature, and other personal predispositions.

Why is it so important to consider all three factors? Let's imagine that you want to be a doctor. But a doctor sounds too general. This profession involves many different categories. So you have to follow this path: once you've decided that you want to become a doctor, you have to check if everything is good with biology and chemistry. Then you should consider personal predispositions. Why? An extrovert can approach the profession of the therapist, and a silent introvert, who likes to do something with his hands, can become an excellent surgeon. This principle applies to almost every profession.

Another factor that says that a person is ready to choose a career path is his willingness to accept highly specific information. Each profession has its job description — a chart that reflects the requirements and skills of the ideal candidate, his or her duties, and personal profile, which corresponds to the objectives of the profession. Specialists develop these descriptions, and if you are hesitating between different activities, it makes sense to get acquainted with several charts of different jobs.

Checklist for a teenager

How do you test your maturity? You need to ask yourself some questions and answer them honestly. The most important thing is, why do I need to get a profession? Do I need to apply to a university, or are there other routes after leaving school?

Take a pen and start answering the following questions:

• Am I going to university because my best friend has chosen this career?
• Am I going to university because my parents said they had acquaintances in this industry?
• How do I see my future career?
• What do I want to get from this profession?
• Why is it so important for me?
• What kind of life I want to live in the future:
  • whether to work for hire or start a business?
  • travel a lot or stay in one place?
  • communicate with people or with data?

You have to realize that the choice of a profession is not just a choice of your future job. It is a long-term planning of your life. And this decision should be made, taking into account not only the desire to be a teacher/physician/actress/blogger but also an understanding of the lifestyle.

If there are doubts, it is better not to rush into choices. You can talk to people who are engaged in this profession, experts, or even find mentors. Explore how their day goes, what their duties are, what they like, and dislike in their work, what are the directions and perspectives? Sometimes you hear in a conversation with a teenager that you want to be an actor because it's cool. But if you dig a little deeper and go through the components of this profession, it loses its halo of attractiveness for many. Each of us may have different values and different motivations: both internal (interests, skills) and external (salary, for example). If the choice is made on the basis only of the romanticization of the profession, without understanding its essence, it is immature.

If you want to get into details and not only to swim in an ocean of theory, you can go to a career guidance camp, attend a school of young professionals in your industry that appeals to you, visit various trade fairs, or ask for a council. Remember, it's not compulsory to get a diploma. There are many reasons why an alternative to the university could benefit you. The key to choosing your career path is in listening to yourself and forward-thinking.