How to Choose a Career
It has to be done: sooner or later, you will have to join a profession of some sort. This guide will take you through the process of finding the right career, one that fits you and your specific needs.
1. Every journey needs a map
If you're starting from scratch, I would advise you to begin by constructing a mind map. The basics are covered at length in our article on how to mind map. Put the words "career choice" in the middle and write down the ideas that pop into your head.
Don't be too picky in the beginning. You need to list every occupation you wouldn't mind pursuing. Once you have a tangible list, you can start to rank the different alternatives and discard those that need to be discarded.
2. Where to get ideas
There are numerous brochures, pamphlets and other materials designed to introduce you to different professions. You can find them online, in the public library or at the career service at your school or university. Search around and you'll find plenty.
Once you've looked through all the main options, you can move on to ranking them in order of preference.
3. Use a matrix
A matrix is, simply put, a type of chart, and you can use one to rank your different ideas. The career that fits you best gets a 10, while the one that fits you worst gets a 1 (or the other way around, whatever makes you happy), and the ones that should be discarded get a 0. This makes it easy to sort the list and see which one suits you best.
4. Finding your passion
Don't pick something simply because your friends picked it too. Find something that is great, something that is for you, something you could see yourself waking up to every morning without feeling disgruntled.
5. Average salary for your desired occupation
As we concluded in our article on how to choose a major, money is indeed funny. Don't let money limit you, but at the same time it shouldn't be neglected. You should have a realistic and clear idea of what your starting salary could turn out to be. Many sources offer free statistics on average salaries, but keep in mind that these are averages, and an average doesn't tell you the whole story.
For instance, the table below shows five people in each of two jobs, all with approximately the same level of experience. The average salary in both examples is 60,000 USD per year. However, as you can see, the second job has a much greater spread in its results than the first. Mathematically, this spread is measured by the variance or the standard deviation. It matters because some careers have much more spread around their averages than others, and you need to keep this in mind.
| Job 1 | Salary, job 1 | Job 2 | Salary, job 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Person 1 | 60,000 USD/year | Person 1 | 40,000 USD/year |
| Person 2 | 50,000 USD/year | Person 2 | 75,000 USD/year |
| Person 3 | 55,000 USD/year | Person 3 | 30,000 USD/year |
| Person 4 | 75,000 USD/year | Person 4 | 135,000 USD/year |
| Person 5 | 60,000 USD/year | Person 5 | 20,000 USD/year |
| Sample total: 5 people | Average: 60,000 USD/year | Sample total: 5 people | Average: 60,000 USD/year |
In some careers, you make approximately the same amount of money regardless of how many years you have worked in the field, while in most others, pay tends to grow with experience. Also, some occupations, such as medicine, may have a higher average salary than, for instance, computer engineering, but the spread is far greater in the latter, where a few people earn enormous amounts.
6. Aggregation
According to Princeton University's WordNet, aggregation is defined as several things grouped together or considered as a whole. Here is why I mention this word: once you've measured how well you think a given occupation suits you, how well your family and friends think it suits you, how great you think that occupation is and how high the salary is (along with any other important factors), you can try to weigh these different sets of data into one single score, such as 9.5 or 7.2.
Finding the right way to aggregate your data isn't always easy. A simple approach is to give each factor a weight based on how much it matters to you, multiply each score by its weight and add up the results for each career.