Want to make the living you dream of? Make your career development a lifelong process. But, where do you start? Begin with career exploration! This blog post will show you how to discover the best career match for you, your skills, and your goals.
Overview of Career Exploration
Career exploration is the first phase of the career development process. Here you identify various work opportunities and how they match your personality, your goals, and your skills. This process does not require much money, but it does involve a good bit of time and thinking. Why? Because to have long-term success, you need to know yourself, your strengths, and your limits. You also need to understand the good, bad, and ugly of any jobs and industries that interest you.
That’s right. We included ‘bad’ and ‘ugly’. If everything about a job was amazing, then everyone would want the job and be willing to do it at a low wage. Every job has negatives. You have to decide which ones are acceptable to you and which are not.
In addition to exploring jobs, you should also consider working for yourself. Entrepreneurship may not fit your goals, but, with few exceptions, it offers the potential for more earnings and freedom. We will touch on each of these subjects below. But, you need to remember two key principles: career exploration is an ongoing process and it always starts with you.
Career Exploration May Be a Lifelong Process
There has been a lot of discussion on the number of careers the average person will have. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the average person will have 12 jobs during their life. First reported in 2015, some confused the term ‘jobs’ with ‘careers’. Also, the research community disagreed on a method to determine whether someone switches jobs or careers. Thus, some began to describe people switching careers, not just jobs, 7-10 times during their life.
However, most of the human resources data suggest that while people change jobs change, they are less likely to completely change careers more than a couple of times. Restarting your career costs significantly in the areas of time, stress, and usually wages. But, there are reasons to do it:
- Major shifts in the economy or business landscape
- Continual decline in or frustration with your current industry or job type
- Changes in personal, family, or financial goals
- Job dissatisfaction
- Low pay
These challenges represent just a few of the reasons to switch jobs or careers. In reality, the era of working with 1-2 companies or 2-4 jobs is over. You will likely experience major changes in your work life. Therefore, we want you to continually be in a mindset of career development. That does not mean you need to be constantly researching new jobs or industries. But, you are the captain of your career. You should be on the lookout for upcoming challenges as well as better opportunities.
If entrepreneurship interests you, think through ways you can take your skillset and personality to create a new product or service. If you prefer the employment route, pay attention to how your industry develops and what skills you need to be a high potential, high value employee.
Rather than getting frustrated with change, embrace the challenge and experience a breakthrough in your career. What are your motivations for change? Are you ready to commit to a lifetime of learning and development? This leads us to the second principle of career development.
Career Exploration Starts with You
Before you consider specific opportunities, you need to understand how you are uniquely wired, gifted, and skilled. You discover these through surveys and profiles. These tools may cover your personality, strengths, and potential weaknesses. Many are available at low or no cost. Often, you can purchase a full report for a few dollars. In addition, you can connect with a trained counselor to better understand your profile and how to move forward. This will come at a more significant cost. You may not want to do that. But, we do suggest purchasing one or two of the full reports to get a full overview of your personality.
Types of Personality Profiles
Some of these surveys will label you with a certain category (such as Myers & Briggs). Others will plot your personality on a graph or set of quadrants (like the DiSC profile). Still, others will provide your four or five most dominant themes (like StrengthsFinder). You can find dozens more through a simple Google search.
How Do You and Your Career Connect?
Knowing yourself is not enough. We also suggest that you take a career motivation profile that goes beyond your basic personality. These provide insight into how you are motivated internally and externally. It also shows the shape of your desired career outcomes. For example, you may be motivated by financial rewards or being known as an expert in your field. Or, you may require variation and learning in multiple jobs. These motivations affect career track and goals much more than most realize. To get started, take a look at these tests:
- Psychology Today Career Motivation Test: This publisher does not charge to take the test. You will answer a series of questions that will take about 15 minutes to complete. If you want your full results, it will cost $6.95.
- MyPlan Career Assessment: Creating a profile will allow you to take the initial assessment. You simply drag and drop a few statements about your career into columns of importance. Other profiles and reports are available for a fee.
There are many others. While we will not recommend one over the other, we do suggest getting a detailed report. Why? Because these factors play a large role in how you develop your career. If you thrive on learning and new opportunities, you should prepare to shift jobs, or careers, every few years. If you have a drive for financial reward or leadership opportunities, you should be willing to shift companies or move often to advance up the ladder.
How Far Can Your Skills Take You?
Finally, you should inventory your current skills and desired skills. We suggest you break these down into two categories:
- Hard Skills (what you can clearly do and measure).
- Information technology (coding, helpdesk, etc.)
- Construction trades (electrician, plumber)
- Digital marketing
- Bilingual or multilingual
- Soft Skills (less tangible skills that are more difficult to measure)
- Teamwork
- Active listening
- Critical thinking
- Creativity
Hard skills provide a clear line to employment. They also establish your basic value to an employer. But, soft skills often multiply your earnings potential through advancement or owning your own business. Some jobs only pay for the specific skill you offer. Some jobs like this pay quite well, but most do not.
Consider an electrician. Wiring a house or building is complicated and requires key training. However, if you are only able to install wiring and fixtures, you will limit yourself to how much your time is worth. However, if you are able to read building plans, hire, train, and manage a staff, you create a value that is 10-20 times your value alone. Electricians make a good living. We know electrical contractor owners that have multiple lake houses.
Which living do you prefer? Take some time to inventory your soft skills. They are game-changers for your career. Once you have this information, discuss the results with someone that knows you well or has a background as a career counselor or life coach. Finally, remember these three principles for career development:
- Your personality may be tweaked, but it is unlikely to significantly change
- Your weaknesses can rarely be trained into strengths. But, your strengths can be honed to make you a rock star
- The sooner you embrace your inventory and work with it, the sooner you will find a job and company that you are a good fit.
Career Exploration: Consider Industries and Specific Job Types
Once you have an understanding of your skills, interests, and motivations, it is time to review different job opportunities. You should review both industries and specific job types that may span multiple industries. You can review either one first. Some workers already know the industry they want to work in, but they are not sure which job they want to pursue. Healthcare is a great example. Candidates commonly want to work in healthcare to help others, but they may not know whether they want to work in administration or clinical roles, and, if a clinical role, what type of role they want to pursue (registered nurse, respiratory therapist, doctor, etc.).
Other candidates may know what type of job they want to pursue, but they are not sure what industry interests them the most. For example, project managers exist in most industries, but the jobs vary significantly from industry to industry. Information technology project managers work with very different projects than those within the construction industry.
Career Exploration: Consider Being Your Own Boss
Entrepreneurship positions you as a business owner, leader, and risk taker. Merriam Webster defines it as “one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise”. We came across this article from Harvard Business Review that frames entrepreneurship in amazing way. According to Professor Howard Stevenson, entreprenurship is “the pursuit of opportunity beyond resources controlled.” Let’s break this down into two distinct ideas:
- Pursuit of Opportunity: Entrepreneurs see and pursue chances to offer a product or service that differs from other current companies. They may be offering something completely new, cheaper, or to a different customer. Those ideas may or may not work out. But, they take chances, and, often those chances pay off.
- Beyond Resources Controlled: Entrepreneurs have limited resources, just like everyone else. Rather than limit what they pursue by how much they have, entrepreneurs see an opportunity and determine what it will take to accomplish the goal. In other words, entrepreneurs find a way to turn $1 into $2 through their work.
With this in mind, consider a few different ways to be your own boss:
- Construction Trade / Handyman
- Website or Graphic Design
- Consulting in your area of expertise
- E-commerice / Drop shipping
- Blogging / Publishing
These options do not require a lot of money. If you are considering starting your own business, we suggest that you already have a background in that area, or start it as a hobby, prior to investing your time and money into this new idea.
Conclusion
To be in a career development mindset, you need to explore and learn about yourself, your goals, and your skills. Whether you want to be an entrepreneur or employee, you owe it to yourself to stay ahead of industry trends and potential changes in the economy. Because of this, embrace learning about your strengths and weaknesses. Take that information, as well as information about various industry and job profiles, to make the best decisions on earning the living that you dream of.
Questions to Consider
- Do you really know what drives you?
- Can you identify common themes in your personality and in your work?
- Do you know and are you comfortable with your limitations?
- What industries interest you the most?
- What job did types appear to be a good fit with your skills?
- What soft skills do you need to develop?
- Are you open to entrepreneurship? If not, what makes you hesitant?
