Besides many choices available, the major question is how to decide what job you want? You can get answer for this question, when you make think deeply with consideration of the available merits and demerits. This process of choosing your career can go as long as you proceed to decide what job you want. Hence these steps can help you with some consideration that guides you in decision-making task. The need for job differs by person to person as per their ability, situation, money need and surrounding. But the way to handle this task will have common steps.
Steps To follow Before Choosing a Career
1.Know yourself
Rather than considering college education alone, you must take into account the other facts like extra skill, work knowledge, professional courses, Inplant training etc. Knowing yourself includes your desire, skills and aspiration over the job you choose. These four steps can help you to know your self to decide what job you want.
- Think of Work you enjoy
Each and everyone will have dreamt of the future job that wish to step in. Here come two 1. The people who chosen the education as per their dream and 2. The people who have educated in the field not as per their wish. The first case will have clear idea to choose their career path. For those who come under the second case and those who don’t have clear ideas in first case can deep thinking to develop interest on the job you are going to make.
- First think of the job and domain or field, that you develop interest to work in, provided that may be your dreamt or obtained education.
- Dream the career where you can execute your learned skills including your in-born skills.
- Do not think of the undesired career, forced by the persons around you. Think on your own.
- Take job assessments
The jobs that you have dreamt earlier may not be exactly same as the thing what you expect. Your dreamt job may differ in practical condition. If you have made the proper analysis of your dreamt job from the start till now, then your dreamt job and job in real condition may match to some extent. Else you must make the job assessments for your dreamt jobs. You can follow these steps to assess your job.
• Search and get any of the option to avail the details about the dreamt job.
• To know about your dreamt jobs, make job assessments with the help of the collected data.
• The job assessment can made offline or Online.
- Get job counseling
The counseling for any problem can give overall idea to solve the problem. The job guidance and job counseling programs will enhance the fresher who are new to job sector. This counseling can enhance and promote the way of thinking about job in the minds of candidates especially for the freshers. The regular job counseling are provided by the Governmental or Non-governmental organizations.
- This counseling can give the overall idea for the freshers, who step into the job sector for the first time.
- You can get the counseling via the online or offline mode.
- The updated news articles published, available from internet may also give counseling regarding the job.
- Make self-evaluation of own interest
After you think of the jobs of dreamt career, once try to make the self-evaluation over these jobs. Your own interests may have both merits and demerits. The self-evaluation will find out those points that differs from dreamt jobs and upcoming practical situation. This will give clear points to decide what job you want.
- Think of your dreamt job with the data collected about that job.
- Try to match the job data, job assessed with your dreamt job.
- Once evaluate the kind of job you thought off in your mind
2. List your capable occupation
Inspite of searching all the jobs that may not suit you, its better to know the job that matches your capability. So think of your capabilities that includes your education and learnt skills. After that, list the jobs that you are capable and enhances your career.
- List the types of jobs
It’s not necessary that your mind will dream only few number of jobs. There may be chances that you dream more number of options if you have more skills and attended more number of courses during your past. Some skills learnt by you in the past may not match the education possessed by you. Then you will find difficulty and confusion to choose correct capable occupation.
- Take a paper and pen to make the list of the jobs that have analyzed in previous step.
- List these jobs with the preferences based on your thought. Then note down these preferences with the reasons at the side of the list made.
- Do not ignore any dreamt job in the list for first time itself. Consider all such jobs that may be analyzed later.
- Make job assessment tests
The jobs you have thought earlier can be made tested under practical situations with simple questions. You will not find the option to have a work demo in all the jobs except in some cases. There the organization will provide the option to show the type of work they carry out in their organizations. But for other jobs, company or management will not allow to reveal the type of work to outsiders as a safety measure. So you can make simple questions by yourself to know the details about that job.
• Test the job assessed by you by framing questions on them.
• When you frame question, then find answer by your own or collect data from other sources.
• If you are able to test that chosen job, then do that.
- Choose one matches your skill
When you make the list of jobs dreamt, you will find the plenty of choices and difficulty in choosing one among them. Then you will find the difficulty to decide what job you want. Then with the previously made steps, you can make some assumptions. Next you can choose the jobs that matches your skill. This step can shortlist the jobs from the more number of chosen jobs .
- After you list out the jobs and assess them, then from that choose the best ones that matches your skills.
- Choose minimum two to three jobs from that list that matches you.
- If you have more number of skills, then decide and choose the skill in the domain you wish to execute.
- With that skill, match your dreamt jobs.
3. Search choices
- Learn training needs, job review and promotion chances.
Many of the companies provide training to the employees, only after which they offer jobs. In some companies, chosen candidates are rejected before they complete the whole training due to the lack of skills and other job conditions. So knowing the training needs and making job review is a key factor. Some employees are being ignored from promotions due to technical reasons. So it is the responsibility of the candidates to consider these points while choosing a company.
- When you decide to go for job training, then what are the basic skills and needs to participate in that training.
- If the recruiter offers you job training, then that may give you the complete information about the job you are about to join.
- Also you can learn the skills and knowledge related to that job.
- Then this training can provide enough exposure for fresher to job sector.
- Beginners job needs
The freshers who make job choices might not be knowing exactly the thing that happens in the job sector. Some of the job prefers certain needs from the employees before joining the job. Then employees for that job will be chosen only after they fulfill the needs of the company. Thus freshers must be aware and prepared with that needs.
- The knowledge you gained in the college might not be adequate to fulfill the expectation of recruiter.
- Then you can acquire proper knowledge from the external sources. You can attend subject related courses or practical training centers if there is a need.
- For that you must first choose the domain, then attend trainings in that domain.
- Data collection from Internet.
All details regarding the jobs that you expect may not be available from your friends and other physical sources. Then you might find difficulty to collect information about a particular job or a company or the job needs. In such cases you can search those details from the internet rather than relying on your friends or using other options. The data from internet acts as the startup and give clear suggestions to decide what job you want.
- The Internet sources will give the job details precisely more than you expect.
- The details regarding job fairs such as venue, date and other details are available in Internet that was available on newspaper earlier.
- The information on various opportunities like training programs and periodical courses can be accessed through the internet.
- Also online job courses and training are available on the internet.
- Calculate Overall Salary and choose networking choices
Some of the companies do not disclose the salary details of the job. Those companies might provide the salary details on negotiation. Others companies do only give the remuneration details for training period. Other companies do not offers renumeration even during training period. Then there is responsibility for the job seeking candidates to enquire about the salary package. Also choose the networking choices to make physical ideas to search your jobs
- When you choose a job then check if the salary package satisfies you .
- For that think your expected salary in your mind. You fix your expected salary based on your family background, condition, your expenditure needs, future needs and other factors.
- After you fix your expected salary, choose the job that provides salary that nearly matches your expected salary.
- Then build relations and seek network choices with outer sources that helps to search the job based on your salary expectation.
4. Shortlist your list
After you going through the ideas in the previous steps, can you answer the question decide what job you want? Even if you not able choose the company, at least you are able to list the jobs that you want from the previous steps. Now the list of jobs you have made will confuse you making a question “ which job should I choose?” Then go through the below steps for choosing the best one.
- Reject jobs dissatisfies your interest.
The list of jobs you made will contain more number of jobs. Even though you chosen these jobs after considering many factors, still there might be the points with these jobs that dissatisfies you. Then consider those points that dissatisfies you to reject the undesired ones from the list of jobs.
- Consider the timing or duration of the listed jobs to know if that suits you for working.
- Some jobs may suit you but that may be longer distance from your home or rest place.
- Also some of you might prefer other facilities like food, snacks etc along with your job.
- Then consider all these points to shortlist the jobs from your list
- Get idea of each job
Some may prefer job oriented conditions and job type to choose your job. Few companies list the roles to be carried out in the job to choose your job type. Then the job oriented conditions includes working atmosphere, staffs relation with the head, staff-staff interaction etc.
- On knowing the role and work to be performed in the job criteria, choose the job type you need.
- Also know the job environment and other job interior factors to choose your job.
- Now based on the above conditions, shortlist the jobs from the list.
- Shortlist with minimum two choices.
When you shortlist these jobs, then have at least 5-6 job options based on your above criteria. Else if you do not find more job options, then choose at least two job options from which you can choose one later. Because in rare situations, any job chosen may go wrong at last minute. Then you can proceed with the chosen other jobs. The above factors will again clear suggestions to decide what job you want.
5.Fix objective
Any place we travel, we go with a target. Likewise once you get into a job, fix some target in your job. Your purpose to finally choose a job may be knowledge, money or anything.
- Set objective
The job you have chosen will be based on your choice, then fix job goals to improve your career. In some jobs, you have to face challenges given to you by your company. Then go ahead choosing those challenges as goals and try to achieve those goals.
- Aim the job challenges given by your company and solve them.
- On succeeding the challenges posted by your company, you will gain more experience that will help you to achieve your goal in your future.
- Make short term and long term
After you make the clear ideas about your aim in your mind, then choose appropriate time to attain your goal. Else you will be subjected to a question “till how many months are you going to make this?”
- Make sure that you attain your short term objective within 1-3 years.
- It will consume time to learn and get knowledge from your job. Learning the nature of job takes time in some cases.
- Then make sure that you achieve your long term objective within 3-5 years.
- Make commitments regarding your job and objective in definite time. Don’t waste too much of your time.
6.Make job implementation plan
Many companies provide a guide to teach about the job. Then you must prepare yourself and get ready to learn the job . Else you must find and create a formula to learn the job by yourself. Learning by yourself will make to attain more knowledge.
- Start job action plan.
You can initiate job action plan by executing the you ideas made regarding your job. Give assignments to yourself and complete those assignments till you learn the way to work in your office.
- Collect the information about your job and the get the way to excel in your job.
- All jobs will exercise time limit for an employee, so that they can learn the way of working within the time period.
- Try to finish the task given by your company in the given time, that will please your head.
- Some companies confirm the job only if the newly joined employees complete the job action within the given time.
• Professional development
Your college life completely differs from the professional environment. The job recruiter will note that you are professionally eligible for the job. So it is the responsibility of the candidate to professionally change themselves such that they are fit to the job environment.
- Before you join a job, your dressing sense, activities, way of speaking and other behaviors will look like a college student. Then to professionally develop yourself, make changes in your behavior that enhances your growth.
- Starting from the attire, attribute to the habits you exhibit must please the employees and others in the job environment.
- Professional development will change your lifestyle and sometimes increases your maturity level.
7. Get training
In many cases the work knowledge you possess will not be enough to do Work in your job. Then you can avail training from the company to get complete working knowledge about your job.
- Get needed training based on job and finish vocational training
Your job type and nature will vary based on your domain you choose. Then the company that provides the job training will classify the training based on your domain you choose. Each domain of job will have individual steps and procedure in the training.
- Avail training based on the job and the domain you choose.
- Some companies will provide you paid training before confirming your job.
- Most companies do not provide the certificate for the training you attend before confirmation of the job. Then you can use that training knowledge for future use.
- Try to finish vocational training within given time
- Know latest skills and finish apprentice
Some fresher intend to attend the apprentice training regarding their job they possess. Then those persons can learn the latest skills and advancements related to their jobs.
- The apprentice trainings update the candidates regarding the jobs.
- But extra knowledge related to that job can be obtained only by external training programmes.