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Career choices
Tips on making the right career choice.
So many career choices, so little time to decide and to make matters worse everybody seems to expect you to know ‘what you want to be’ in your final year at school. In reality, whilst still at school, lots of people don’t know what career they are most suited to. They try different jobs or get qualifications that they think are interesting and often settle into a career they never thought of whilst in school.
Others realise that they’ve studied the wrong subjects or chosen the wrong career and return to education as mature students or change jobs for something more suited to their interests and skills.
So, it can be a twisty path to finding the job that’s right for you. In the meantime take every opportunity to try different jobs (work experience, volunteering or part-time work) and try to find a job that you feel passionate about instead of just being a way to keep money in your pocket!
Making the right career choices:
- Make use of school or university career guidance rooms and research the jobs you’re interested in as much as possible. Also talk to the Career Guidance counsellor or teacher and don’t be shy in telling them what really interests you.
- If you’ve decided what job tickles your fancy then try to talk to someone who does that job. Be cheeky: call up the companies or organisations where you could potentially work and ask them to talk to you about career options.
- Try to get lots of work experience in different types of jobs.
- If you don’t know what you’d like to work in then try to think of what your dream job would be, what you’re good at in school, what you love doing and what job opportunities are available in the careers that interest you.
- Think about whether you want to go to college or university, take a professional training course or go straight into work.
- Think about whether you want to stay in your local area or move somewhere else (in Ireland or abroad) to study, train or work.
- Don’t let anyone try to tell you that you won’t be able to do the job you're interested in, that you won’t get the right exam results or that you aren’t good enough.
- Always aim for what interests you the most and have a second option in case things don’t work out.
- Make use of recruitment agencies. They can offer career advice as well as aptitude and interest tests.
