Tips for Choosing and Pursuing a New Career

Before you choose a new career, you have to do a personal evaluation. When you started your first career, what was your motivation? Was it to do what your parents wanted? Was it to make a lot of money? Did you grab the job out of desperation? Well now is the time to choose a career for the right reasons.

Think about what you are good at. What do you love? For instance, do you have an eye for design? Do you enjoy debating with people like lawyers do? Are you good with your hands? Sit down and take a few hours to write down a list of your strengths and loves on a piece of paper. You will then start to get an idea of the type of career you might want to pursue.

List of Careers

Once you have your list written down of all the things you love to do (and are really good at), now you can start investigating careers that would allow you to pursue your passion. For instance, if you love animals, you might list: veterinarian, conservationalist, or animal photographer. Don't list just one career-brainstorm as many as you possibly can (at least 10), even if they are only indirectly related to the things you love to do. Go to bls.gov/k12/azlist.htm to view a list of careers from A to Z. CareerPlanner.com also lists over 1200 possible careers for you to look into.

Narrow Your List Down Based on Your Needs

Once you have a list of possible careers, narrow them down based on your personal preferences and requirements. For instance, if you only want to work indoors, scratch off the jobs that would require you to work out in the field or in nature. If you absolutely must make at least $50,000 per year, find out which of the careers you chose would allow you to make that amount of money. Use Salary.com to look into average salaries for the career(s) that you are chosen as possibilities and again use Career Planner or BLS to learn about the various job descriptions that are associated with this new career.

Learn From People Who Work in This Career

Once you have your list narrowed down to one to three choices, join forums and websites that are frequented by people who work in these field. They will be your best source for information on whether this is an ideal career to pursue, what you need in order to succeed, and what to expect.