Step 1: Look in the Mirror
Step 2: Assess your Skills and Experience
Step 3: Take Time to Think
Step 4: Investigate Your Career Options
Step 5: Prepare for Action
Step 1: Look in the Mirror
Before you can figure out what kind of job you might like, you have to figure out your preferences and workstyle. What do you love to do? What do you hate to do? Does it inspire you to work with people, or are you more of a loner? Does outdoor work stimulate you, or does the thought of open spaces make you break out in hives? There are a number of things you can determine about yourself that will help you narrow the job field and find a career you'll really like.
Spend some time thinking about the following questions, and write down some thoughts about each. You might be surprised by what you learn about yourself:
Interests: What do you do in your spare time? What are your favorite hobbies, or subjects in school? What motivates you and sparks your interest?
Values: What principles do you use to guide your life? For instance, is it more important to you to make money or contribute to the community? What are the three things you believe in most strongly?
Personality: Are you outgoing or introverted, fun-loving or serious? Think about the people you're friends with, or the people you find most challenging to get along with. What can you see about yourself by looking at your relationships?
Lifestyle: Where do you want to live? What do you want to own? What are your financial obligations or your family's financial needs? What are your hobbies and what do they cost? How much free time do you need to attend to your life outside of work? Get a rough idea of what's involved in living the lifestyle you aspire to, and be realistic.
Step 2: Assess your Skills and Experience
Make a list of all the things you know how to do, no matter where you learned to do them. This is a brainstorming technique that will let you look at all the skills you've acquired over your lifetime. If you don't have much in the way of job experience, include things you learned from volunteering, or classes, or social organizations. You might discover that you have a lot more skills and experience than you thought you did.
Step 3: Take Time to Think
Now that you've taken a good hard look at yourself, think things over. Do your skills match your interests and your personality? How does all of this relate to the kinds of jobs you might like? Start thinking of possible careers that might marry your interests and skills, and as you come up with ideas, keep the following aspects of the job in mind as a "reality check". Will this job require you to go back to school? Will the work environment suit you?
Step 4: Investigate Your Career Options
This step takes mental legwork, but it's probably the most interesting. You need to figure out what jobs might match your interests, skills, and lifestyle requirements, and to do so, you need to get creative.
There are a number of resources available to help with your research. You can visit The Job Market Resource Room and use our Discover system, which helps identify careers that would match your needs. You can go to the public library and ask the reference desk for assistance. You can search various online sites and explore your options.
There are also some hands-on ways to figure out if a job is right for you. You can volunteer at an organization that interests you, and gain valuable work experience, references, and networking opportunities.
You can also contact someone who has a job you're interested in and see if you can set up a Job Shadowing arrangement. Job Shadowing lets you watch a person while he works and gather valuable information about how he found the position, what his responsibilities are, and what he likes and dislikes about the job. This is a great way to get a more realistic sense of what it's actually like to do the kind of work you're considering. And don't be shy-people usually love to talk about what they do.
Step 5: Prepare for Action
At this stage, you should have a pretty clear idea of what kind of career you'd like, and what's involved in pursuing it. Now's the time to map out the steps you'll be taking to land that dream job.
Get out your calendar and decide when you want to begin your new career, then figure out exactly what you have to do to between now and then. If you need to pursue training, give yourself ample time to take the classes or workshops required. If you're going to be volunteering or doing job shadowing while you continue to work at a current job, make a realistic schedule that won't leave you exhausted. Give yourself plenty of time to revamp your resume and cover letters, and budget accordingly if your plans will require new tools, classes, clothing, or travel. Write as many tasks as you can on your calendar and mark them off as you complete them. This will give you a sense of accomplishment, and some way to measure your progress.
Once you're ready to start sending out your resume, come in to the Job Market for help, or jump ahead to our section on Getting the Job and Keeping It.