Clueless about career? Analyse yourself

-Obul Reddy, Vijayawada

Career planning is answering three questions- “Where am I now?” “Where do I want to get to?” and “How do I get there?” This helps in choosing a career that you will enjoy.

To begin with, describe your present situation by answering the question, “What is your current education, training or employment situation? Make a written record of all the qualifications you possess, including any certificates such as first aid, sports, literary activities, coaching qualifications, etc. List all work experience and voluntary work you have undertaken to date and any work experience you already have and you have planned for the future, include the date and duration and also your learning from it.

Coming to your skills, it is equally important as your qualifications, and most of the time we are not aware of our own skills. Therefore go through this skill list -Analyzing, assessing, computing, communicating, coordinating, decision making, evaluating, examining, interpreting, leading, liaising, managing, memorising, negotiating, operating, organising, performing, planning, problem solving, researching, selling, teaching, training, writing/reading, etc. Identify skills that you have demonstrated and are very good at.

Ascertain set of values, ie your beliefs and ideas about work, that you have embraced throughout your life so far, for the reason that career satisfaction fits with your values and beliefs. To name a few, helping others, working alone/working with others, competition, working under pressure, recognition, work mastery,

influencing people, change and variety, stability, security, financial gain, precision

work, independence, etc, and note down your five most essential values.

Now find out who you are, what you can do and what you like to do, this is nothing but assessing your personality traits. Discover the work environments best suited to your interests, abilities and personality.

You can always, if possible visit different companies and speak to their employees, ask them why they think their job suits them.

So now that you know yourself and have an idea of the kind of career you’re looking for it’s time for some research about various careers that would interest you. You can attend a job fair, consult a career counsellor and find out in detail about the job that interests you, like, work place conditions and culture, how stressful is the job, current projects they are involved in, basic entry requirements, how to be recruited to this job and will it be difficult, the pay scale and bonus system, how to prepare the exact CV to impress them, further training required for an entry and finally the career progression. If possible you can work on any project work on a voluntary basis to get the feel of the job.

Lastly identify your personal obstacles, both internal and external, like fear of failing/risk/making a wrong decision, low self confidence, pressure from personal relationships, peer pressure, negative influences from family and friends, finances, etc. Talk about this with someone you trust and ask about their honest observations on what you feel is holding you back and get an impartial view.

All the best.