career

Before you can choose the right career, you must learn about yourself, your values, interests, soft skills, aptitudes, and your personality type.

Use self-assessment tools, and career tests to gather information about yourself and, subsequently, generate a list of occupations that are a good fit based on them.

Self-assessment tools:

• Tell us what you like to do

• Careers by Education, Training, & Experience

• Naviance Career Assessments

Create a list of "potential" occupations that your STEP 1: self-assessments ​indicated might be a good fit for you and that you are interested in learning more about.

Find job descriptions and education, training, and licensing requirements in published sources. Learn about advancement opportunities. Use government-produced labor market information to get data about earnings and job outlook.

Here are more ways to search careers:

Search careers with key words

Careers by industry

Careers by occupation group

Careers sorted by interests

Bright outlooks

Green economy

Highest paying

Fastest growing(projected)

Most new jobs (projected)

Based on what you have learned from your research so far, begin eliminating the careers you don't want to pursue any further. You should end up with two to five occupations on your "short list."

Remove everything with duties that don't appeal to you. Eliminate careers that have weak job outlooks. Get rid of any occupation if you are unable or unwilling to fulfill the educational or other requirements, or if you lack some of the soft skills necessary to succeed in it.

When you have only a few occupations left on your list, start doing more in-depth research. Arrange to speak with people who work in the occupations in which you are interested. They can provide firsthand knowledge about the careers on your short list. Access your network, including LinkedIn, to find people with whom to have these informational interviews.

Interviews can be conducted using various methods such as in person, via phone, zoom, email, twitter, etc.

Finally, after doing all your research, pick the occupation that you think will bring you the most satisfaction based on all the information you have gathered. Realize that you are allowed do-overs if you change your mind about your choice at any point in your life. Many people change their careers at least a few times!

Once you make a decision, identify your long- and short-term goals. This helps to chart a course toward eventually landing work in your chosen field. Long-term goals typically take about three to five years to reach, while you can usually fulfill a short-term goal in six months to three years.

Let the research you did about required education and training be your guide. If you don't have all the details, do some more research or interviews. Once you have all the information you need, set your goals. An example of a long-term goal would be completing your education and training. Short-term goals include applying to college, apprenticeships, other training programs, and internships.

Create a career action plan, a written document that lays out all the steps you will have to take to reach your goals. Think of it as a road map that will take you from point A to B, then to C and D. Write down all your short- and long-term goals and the steps you will have to take to reach each one. Include any anticipated barriers that could get in the way of achieving your goals—and the ways you can overcome them.

This may sound like a lot of work—and it is. But it's much easier to forge a career path when you know what you want. Taking these steps early will save you a lot of struggle and uncertainty in the long run!