It is essential as a student to know that career decision making is more than a process. It should not be an event. As a student, you will continuously continue to make decisions regarding your future careers.
Career counseling helps you make a sound and informed understanding. You have to understand yourself – skills, values, and interests – to make a wise career decision. However, you also have to be responsible for any decision you make.
Here, we discuss:
- Understanding Yourself
- Identifying and researching options
- Prioritizing Your career options
- Try chosen options
- Re-evaluating the career
The first step as a student that can help you solve your career problem is when you bridge the gap of where you are and the place you want to be in the future. Therefore, you need to explore your interests as they can help you make your career options and education that match your goals.
As you continue to garner experience at various stages during your professional life, the process will repeat again and again. You have to; therefore, understand the career decision making process steps.
Understanding Yourself
When you’re exploring your career options, the first step is where you assess your values, personality, and interests. Self-assessment, therefore, helps you to understand your transferable and technical skills. Here, you have to consider the factors affecting your searches, like the organization’s culture, work-life balance, and geographic preferences. If you do that, you can be able to focus on search, and that helps you direct your efforts into a productive manner.
Remember that assessments won’t define you and tell you things you can do. These assessments only help by suggesting those areas you can further explore and have a starting place for your research. However, self-assessment is a valuable resource, but it can also be misleading after you don’t assess yourself honestly and accurately.
The components of understanding yourself include career satisfaction you get after you pursue careers utilizing your skills that are fit with your personality and interests and then align with your values.
Identifying and researching options
Engineers, teachers, and doctors are among the popular jobs you know. However, there are thousands types of jobs that are created each day because the industries continue to evolve. College students’ career decision making is essential because you’ve to undertake self-assessment regarding your values, skills, and interests; you have to take time and explore various career options. You don’t have to limit yourself only on those careers that you’re familiar with.
In your research, investigate the employers who are in the field of your interest, latest industry news, and trends in your industry. Also, immerse yourself in the website, resources, and publications that are professional in your field. If you do the research properly, it can help you to develop a list of target industries and sectors where you see a future.
Prioritizing Your career options
After you’ve taken time conducting research regarding your career option, this is the step you have to evaluate and prioritize, especially the career decision making for high school students. You have to undertake a reality check on each career field you want to explore and weigh both the ups and downs. However, you have to evaluate how the career choice will match well with you and what you want.
If, after an in-depth search, you realize that the career field does not fit you, that’s fine. The advantage is that this point is to clarify the career is a good fit for you. If you don’t get a stronger impression in any way, the best thing to do is get in touch with a counsellor to have accurate impressions.
Try chosen options
After conducting your research on career opportunities you’re interested in, this is the time you can try them to garner experience. You can try the position through extracurricular involvement and internships for a first-hand perspective. Besides, after you gain experience, you can develop transferable and marketable skills helping you with future opportunities.
As a student, you might seek to build yourself relevant experience through undertaking internships and various experimental learning. There are multiple ways you can get relevant skills and experience before you complete education. You can do that by undertaking a part-time job in your career field.
Moreover, there are student organizations that can offer you an opportunity to test various roles. For example, there are campus publications that will need reporters, writers, and other staff where you can try.
Re-evaluating the career
When working and after garnering some experience, take your time to evaluate the progress of your career. You should evaluate to know whether that career is fit for you or not.
However, sometimes you might be trust the process and feel as if you don’t find a direction since you started. Following this a planned process helps you to make progress. In each area you’ll explore, you will be taking a step closer to the option that is good for you. The more time you take reflecting, you will be learning about the environment and work you find satisfying.
Conclusion
The career decision-making process for students has attracted research attention when choosing tertiary education. Besides essential decision-making skills, various studies are exploring this phenomenon. There are multiple factors that might influence you, such as your family and technology environments.
If you are not sure about how to make a career decision, you should seek career counselling for help. We are an organization that help students make the right career decisions; we help you draw the right career path; make you understand the decision-making process and the power of making the right decision. Why don’t you try us today?
