What should you know before deciding which career you want to pursue

Use the following steps to learn how to find out what career you want:

1. Use several self-assessment tools

The first step in figuring out what you want as a career is assessing your values, personality, skills, and interests. These characteristics will invariably impact whether or not you’re likely to enjoy a particular occupation and be successful at it. Self-assessment comes in many forms, such as:

• Take a skills assessment. Knowing what your abilities are is essential to choosing a career because each profession requires a specific skill set comprising both soft skills and hard skills. Soft skills are aptitudes you acquire naturally, and hard skills are ones you gain through study or training.
• Make separate lists for your hard and soft skills. You’re likely to have abilities you don’t know about, so use the results from your skills assessment to make two separate lists: one for soft skills and one for hard skills. For example, empathy is a soft skill, so it should be included with your other soft skills. In contrast, being able type 50 words per minute is a hard skill, which belongs in a separate list. If you’re not sure what your skills are, ask a friend or a mentor for their feedback on the activities you can do effectively.
• Take an interests quiz. Your interests, such as writing or watching movies, can influence your job performance because you’re likely to perform better if your duties interest you. Therefore, it’s important to figure out what your interests truly are. Assess your interests with a tool such as Strong Interest Inventory (SII). Another great option is the O*NET Interests Profiler, which is administered by the U.S. Department of Labor. This tool uses information about your interests, which you provide by answering questions, to identify your interests and provide career suggestions that suit each interest.
• Take a personality assessment. Your personality, which includes your unique preferences, can have a major impact on whether or not you like a job. Use a personality assessment method such as Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to learn about yourself.
• Take a values test. A profession that fits your values is essential to be happy and engaged at work, so knowing what your values are can help you to choose the right career. For example, if you value having a prestigious job and earning a high salary, you’re unlikely to be happy in a low income, low profile occupation. You can use a tool such as the Survey of Interpersonal Values (SIV) to get the information you need to identify your values.

Learn more: Discover companies hiring by location, job title, and industry

2. Review your work history

If you have been employed before, either full time or part time, ask yourself the following questions to help identify any lessons you may have learned:

• What did I like most in each of my previous jobs?
• What was my best employment experience, and why was it great?
• What were my favorite features of the organization?
• What did I dislike most about the organization?
• What did I like or dislike about my previous supervisors?
• Among my previous supervisors, what did I like most about my favorite one?
• What is the biggest challenge I have faced in my employment history?
• Among the individuals I have worked with, which of their qualities did I value most?

Based on your findings, make a list of your preferences in relation to job duties, work settings, companies, bosses, and co-workers. Learn more: How to Choose a Career Path

3. Research different careers

Use the information you have learned about yourself during the self-assessment stage to research various careers. You can use the following methods to get the information you need about specific career paths:

• Ask friends in your social network. Your peers are likely to know about some career options you may not know about. You may also have friends who have work experience in a career that could work for you. Use your social network, and ask for other people’s opinions.
• Ask a career professional. Career counselors are professionals who have the skills to match you to a suitable career. Talk to one of these professionals and get some professional advice. Before you schedule that appointment, ensure that your counselor has a state license and is a member of the National Career Development Association (NCDA) to avoid getting bad advice.
• Use social media. Leverage the reach of social media platforms to research different careers. Read information on profession-based Facebook groups; read Twitter chats on different professions; and use LinkedIn to access job descriptions, interviews, and articles.
• Attend professional events. Most industries host workshops and conferences. Try to attend a few that relate to different careers that interest you.
• Gain new knowledge. You can explore possible professions while equipping yourself with the necessary hard skills for working in them by using platforms such as Coursera, which offers free programs in several areas such as math, computer science, and personal development. Additionally, you can boost your knowledge of specific career paths by reading books, watching relevant YouTube videos, and trying new hobbies that could lead to a rewarding career.

Based on your research, make a list of five careers that appeal to you.

4. Consider the necessary preparation

While some careers may need only minimal education or training, others may need extensive preparation. You need to know if a profession is achievable for you in terms of cost of education and training, difficulty of the education and training, and length of time it takes to become qualified. You can use the O*NET Interests Profiler to determine the logistics of each career option recommended by the assessment tool. If there is an option on your list that has not been recommended by O*NET, research it separately. Once you understand the preparation required, narrow your list down to three careers that are both interesting and achievable. You can use the following checklist of questions to compete this step:

• What education do you need for the career?
• Can you meet the cost of the education or training?
• What professional certifications do you need for the career?
• Are there any student aid programs that can help you to pay for the educational requirements?
• Are the education requirements achievable in terms of time and effort?
• Can you gain the necessary academic or professional credentials while you work?
• What are the hard skills you need to develop for the career?
• Do you have the soft skills you need for this career?
• What programs can help you can gain the necessary hard skills?
• What industry experience can you gain in the near future to give yourself a head start?
• Is the career worth the effort of preparing for it?

Based on what you learn, narrow your career path options to three for further exploration. Learn more: Fast Learner Skills: Definition and Examples

5. Experience your favorite careers

Here are some methods you can use to get some hands-on experience in the career of your choice:

• Job shadowing: This technique involves observing a senior worker performing their job duties for as little as a day or as long as a few weeks. Job shadowing can help you to learn about the job, build valuable contacts in a particular career path, and gain valuable skills.
• Informational interviews: This method involves contacting a successful senior professional in the career of your choice, requesting the opportunity to benefit from their industry expertise, scheduling a meeting, and learning about their career path thus far. It’s also a great way to build industry contacts.
• Internship: By completing an internship, you can gain a first-hand understanding about a particular career. An internship is likely to be more comprehensive than job shadowing and informational interviews. It can also help you gain work experience that you can list on your resume, which can improve your chances of being hired in the future.
• Volunteering: You can volunteer in your preferred career path during your free time to gain on-the-job experience and skills that can improve your resume and employability.

6. Select the best career option

You’re likely to excel in a job that aligns with your values, interests, abilities, and personality, so use what you have learned in the previous steps to choose the career path that seems most likely to suit you.

7. Review your choice once every three years

Once you have begun your chosen career, evaluate your decision once every three years to make sure you’re still on the path you desire. Your aspirations, skills, personality, and interests can change over time, and you shouldn’t be afraid to adjust your plans to meet those changes. If necessary, use this process again to find a new career. If you’ve been wondering how to figure out what kind of job you want, you should now have all you need to start narrowing down your options. Use the information we’ve laid out here to get on the path to finding your ideal career.

With thousands of options, how will you choose a career that's right for you? If you don't have any idea what you want to do, the task may seem insurmountable. Fortunately, it isn't. Follow an organized process and you will increase your chances of making a good decision.

• To find the best career fit, you must first assess yourself and make a list of careers you think might match your interests and skills.
• After researching those careers, narrow down your selection to a "short list" of career fields to explore further with informational interviews.
• Once you're ready, you can pick a career field, set goals, and create an action plan to achieve those goals.

Before you can choose the right career, you must learn about yourself. Your values, interests, soft skills, and aptitudes, in combination with your personality type, make some occupations a good fit for you, and others completely inappropriate.

Use self-assessment tools, and career tests to gather information about your traits and, subsequently, generate a list of occupations that are a good fit based on them. Some people choose to work with a career counselor or other career development professionals who can help them navigate this process.

You probably have multiple lists of occupations in front of you at this point—one generated by each of the self-assessment tools you used. To keep yourself organized, you should combine them into one master list.

First, look for careers that appear on multiple lists and copy them onto a blank page. Title it "Occupations to Explore."

If your self-assessments ​indicated a career is a good fit for you based on several of your traits, it's worth exploring.

Next, find any occupations on your lists that appeal to you. They may be careers you know a bit about and want to explore further. Also, include professions about which you don't know much. You might learn something unexpected.

At this point, you'll be thrilled you managed to narrow your list down to only 10 to 20 options. Now you can get some basic information about each of the occupations on your list. 

Find job descriptions and educational, 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.

For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes "Career Outlook" analysis articles for many professions. These articles supplement the "Occupational Outlook Handbook" which also offers detailed statistics on career pay, growth trends, and more.

Now you have more information, start to narrow down your list even further. Based on what you 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."

If your reasons for finding a career unacceptable are non-negotiable, cross it off your 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 meet with people who work in the occupations in which you are interested. They can provide firsthand knowledge about the careers on your short list.

Finally, after doing all your research, you are probably ready to make your choice. 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. 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.

Put together 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.

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