How To Choose A Career Path You’re Good At And Will Enjoy
*This is a collaborative post on how to choose your career path
We’re all told to think about a career path during school, to think about our future and university. But it’s so common now for people to change their career path and retrain in a totally new area.
If you’re unsure of what career path you want to take, or what job might be most suitable to your needs it’s worth creating a career development plan. Having a plan means you’ll be able to manage your learning and progression to achieve something that will hopefully make you happy. A plan will also help you develop new skills and know what you’re looking for when opportunities come your way.
Identify your skills and interests
Choosing a career path is a huge deal as you’ll spend a significant amount of your life at work. So you want to enjoy your job, feel motivated and interested but also fulfil your potential. So to start with you have to think about yourself and know what makes you tick.
Once you understand the skills and knowledge you have you’ll be able to see if you’re the right fit for a job. Or if you have a real interest in something but no skills to back it up you’ll know the areas to work on.
But most of all note down your interests because you want to choose a career path that you’ll enjoy. Your interests may line up with skills you have, or maybe they won’t. I always knew I loved writing. And after doing a degree in creative writing I realised I loved it even more. So I developed my skills in areas such as SEO, marketing and content planning through practice with this blog, and through online courses and additional education.
Transferable and specialist skills to choose a career path
Note down all the skills you have that are transferable and can be used for a large number of roles. Perhaps you’re super organised, great with technology, computer literate or able to deal well under lots of pressure. Or perhaps you’ve had experience at school building cobots and loved your experience which may lead you to get into robotics or software engineering.
Then it’s time to note down any specialist skills you have which may suit a particular career path. This might be coding, or building furniture from scratch. Whatever it may be note down it.
Research plenty of career paths
Once you know what interests you then now is time to do some research into the job market.
There are lots of questions you may want to ask yourself which can determine the career path you go into. For example location, are you set on the area you’re currently living in? Is there a particular city you’d like to move to? Or would you love to work abroad? If you want to work abroad then you’ll want to research global firms that will have locations all around the globe. Or if you want to stay where you’re living then a local business will be better.
Then consider the job sectors available. You may not know or mind which sector you’re in, or you may know straight away that you want to work for a charity for example. The three main job sectors are:
- Private – sole traders, partnerships and limited companies
- Public – local and national governments including their agencies and chartered bodies
- Not-for-profit – this is often referred to as the third sector which includes charity and voluntary work
Narrowing down jobs and job sectors
If you can afford to work for lower rates then it might be worth considering work experience, internships or apprenticeships in order to try out job areas that you’re interested in. Or perhaps a graduate scheme with a particular company. This will help you to gain insight into areas you are interested in but may not have much knowledge about. You’ll have a chance to try it out before committing yourself to a certain career path.
When you start looking at jobs out there note down all the ones that sound interesting to you and compare what they’re looking for. Do they all have similar entry requirements or training needed for them? The jobs may seem quite different to begin with but once you narrow it down there might similar skills you need for them all.
Set achievable goals
Once you start to get an idea on jobs or the career path you want to go down it’s time to set some goals. It may be worth mapping some alternative paths if there are a few areas you’re interested in. This means if you try one out and it doesn’t work out you already have a plan in place.
You can now work out what the next actions you need to take are. Do you need a specific piece of training or education? Do you need to develop skills in a particular area which are beneficial for the path you’re choosing?
A short term goal might be editing your CV to be specific for the area you’re looking to pursue. Or perhaps you need to brush up on your interview technique to show you’re not phased by pressure or direct questioning. Medium term goals might be taking on an internship, doing a part-time online course, or gaining experience through volunteering.
Make sure you constantly review your progress as you may have one set of actions to get your foot into the career you’re after but further goals to get where you’d like to eventually end up. For most of us we’ll need to start lower down the chain and work our way up through practical experience. Career planning is a continuous process so revisit and review your objectives throughout.
How did you end up on the career path you’re on now?
31 responses to “How To Choose A Career Path You’re Good At And Will Enjoy”
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Rhian Westbury
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I remember doing some of the aptitutde tests in high school to learn what career paths best fit our interests. If I had followed that, I’d be doing something completely different than what I am now! I think the most important is to find a career that makes you happy since you spend so much time on it.
Yes happiness and where your passion lies. You can learn skills but you can’t change what you enjoy as easily x
These are great tips! Once you find a career you love, it no longer feels like work.
I am trying so hard to teach my kids how important it is to find something that they love doing rather than settling for a job they just do.
So important! x
I never really knew what I wanted to do and fell into a job at 19 working on the picture desk at a newspaper, I learned photoshop skills and admin skills. It made me love photography and when I was made redundant I felt confident enough to use those skills as a freelance.
That’s so good, you found something you enjoyed and learned the skills you needed x
It is really important do something you enjoy. It normally comes hand in hand with something you are good at. Setting achieveable goals is important and helpful.
So true, you want to enjoy what you do as you spend so long working you don’t want to resent x
It definitely pays to keep your options open when it comes to careers. It took me ages to find my feet in writing.
Students who are about to enter college ought to read your post. Just the same, I’m still happy that I got to pursue the career that I like.
Great article for those are in-between careers right now. Lots of good points and insight. Thanks for sharing!
These are all excellent tips. The worst thing is to end up in a dead end job that you absolutely despise.
Yeah you don’t want to dread work x
The best thing I did while in college was to learn about myself first–my values, interests, soft skills, and aptitudes, personality type.
I wish I’d had this at school/ college because everyone has different interests/ values/ soft skills that would be great for differing jobs x
My twenty-something year-old son is struggling with this. I am sending him this post. Thank you!!
Fantastic tips! It can sometimes take us a while to work out exactly what we want to do but it is so important to find a career that we are not only good at but that we enjoy.
It really makes a big difference if you are able to work in a field that you enjoy. These are good tips.
It really does, it makes it feel less like work and more like a passion project x
We might hear some mentioned above usually but yes, these are the particular and simple things we really need to know in choosing our career path.
I wish I had these tips when I was younger. It can be so difficult choosing which career is right for you.
Tbh I wish I had had them 15 or so years ago x
I think it’s more acceptable than ever to have a portfolio career, I’ve certainly done a few different things so far!
For me, work will always be work, but having more enjoyable work is always a massive plus!
Research is key! Research and let if resonate with you!
Great advice for sure. Doing what you love is so important and you will be more successful.
I will definitely be advising my children to search for something they enjoy and not feel they need to rush into a career.
So true, you can try out a few things first to get a feeling of what you may enjoy x
This is something we have been discussing with my daughter, although she is just re entering into education, she is unsure what career path she wants to do. Hopefully she will realise what she wants at some stage and be something she enjoys rather than having to do
Hopefully she’ll find something she enjoys and can go from there x