What is a Career?
The word “career” is a shortened version of the word “carrière,” meaning road or racecourse. Today, “career” refers to an occupation or profession.
Careers can be defined as a person’s lifelong work, or they can be seen as a series of related jobs. It is the culmination of your roles, experiences, education, and pathways to reach your objectives. A job is only a role. Most people’s lives now revolve around their work, which influences how they make a living. Weinrach stated, in 1979, that work occupies more time than any other activity, except for sleep, during a person’s life, and not much has changed in 2022. As a result, it significantly influences other facets of life and, to some extent, an individual’s emotional and material well-being. It can indicate someone’s socioeconomic position, where they reside, who they socialize with, and how they spend their free time.
Environmental changes have affected traditional organizational structures, employer-employee relationships, and the work context, changing how people pursue their careers. Examples include increased globalization, rapid technological advancements, increased workforce diversity, and the expanding use of part-time and temporary workers (Sullivan & Baruch, 2009). Many people began working for themselves, utilizing the Internet as a low-cost tool to connect with suppliers, find business partners, and advertise their products (Carraher, 2005).
How Do You Find the Right Career?
Given the importance of a job role, the process by which people choose, begin, and advance in their working lives becomes a meaningful journey of personal growth (Rainer, 1993). According to Michelozzi (1980), selecting a career can be an extraordinary and priceless time when people must orient and plan their lives.
Social Cognitive Career Theory
Numerous individual, contextual, and situational factors that interact over time impact career development. A section of social cognitive theory (SCCT) was generalized by Lent et al. (1994), who then provided a framework that focused on three mechanisms that are particularly important for career development: (1) self-efficacy beliefs, (2) result expectations, and (3) goals. People engage with their environment and strive to build the cognitive, social, and behavioral abilities needed to develop solutions that would help them achieve their goals.
According to the self-efficacy theory, people interact with their surroundings and actively seek the cognitive, social, and behavioral abilities needed to create strategies to help them achieve their goals. A dynamic set of self-beliefs specialized in certain performance domains that interact intricately with others, behavior, and environmental circumstances make up self-efficacy (Lent & Brown 1996). Self-efficacy concerns a person’s perception of their ability to succeed in a specific task. An example of self-efficacy is someone covering for their manager but never managed a team before, believing they have the skills to pick it up quickly and do the job well.
An individual’s expectations of the effects of their behavior lead to outcome beliefs. Depending on which alternative conduct will provide the desired result, a person will decide between them (Vroom, 1964). Expectations of outcomes are crucial in driving people toward their goals. Various beliefs about response outcomes, such as extrinsic reinforcement (awards, promotions, kudos), consequences, and results generated from engaging in a particular activity, are outcome expectancies (Lent et al., 1994). According to the SCCT, career interests and ambitions are significantly influenced by outcome expectations (Gore & Leuwerke, 2000). People will set goals to choose careers in which they expect positive results and will have increased interest in particular hobbies and professions.
Goals were discovered to be the strongest predictor of intended action by Bagozzi et al. (1989). Setting precise goals enables an individual to organize and drive their behavior sustainably and increases the possibility that desired intents will be realized, even when contextual influences and personal experiences also influence how one behaves (Lent et al., 1994). Although several terminologies have been used, such as career plans, career decisions, and professional aspirations, goals are an essential component of many job choice and decision-making theories.
What is Your Passion, and Why Do You Want a Job in That Field?
Beyond self-efficacy beliefs, result expectations, and goals, passion is an important variable when finding the right job. Passion is a feeling that is difficult to express in words. It’s an intense and persistent enthusiasm for a subject or activity. To find your passion, you need to know what you like and your strengths. If you like doing something, chances are that it will be easy for you and you’ll enjoy it even more. Passion is often associated with excitement, enthusiasm, and determination and is the fuel that keeps us going and makes life worth living. It can be found in anything and everything we do, from hobbies to careers.
The 2-Hour Job Search author Steve Dalton (2012) said, “In my experience, people who combine their skills with their passions find the job search process to be the least stressful… People are eager to recruit you when you are knowledgeable and passionate.” Bolles, the author of What Color is Your Parachute (2013), noted that job seekers could ruin all of their learning if they have the wrong attitude. According to the archetypes he provided, the person with a wrong attitude is fuming with rage, gloomy, pessimistic about the future, and believes that their life as they know it is finished. However, the person with the correct attitude is full of hope even though they are equally unhappy in their life. They view life as an adventure and are content to watch quietly while the next Act develops (Hong, 2014).
The “flower exercise,” in Bolle’s perspective, is how the object of passion and desire is attained (Hong, 2014). Bolles’ instrument is described as a tool for self-discovery. It challenges readers to analyze seven facets (petals) of their ambitions and skills, although variations of such exercises can be found in many professional guides. The facets are favored areas of competence, relationships at work, personal abilities, working circumstances, salary/responsibilities, location(s), goal, purpose, and life mission. The reader is provided with an in-depth and intricate understanding of their passion by filling out these parts and mapping them on a single image.
What Color is Your Parachute argues that one’s personal life ultimately determines their financial future (Hong, 2014). Nobody is excluded from the condition of economic self-empowerment since what leads to success is the discovery of passion. That passion depends on an investigation of one’s personal history and preferences, which is accessible to everyone. With the right personal story and economic vocabulary, overcoming a lack of education or skills is possible.
Learn Your Purpose
In addition to passion, most articles and people will tell you to find your purpose, but we say learn your purpose. You can get to know yourself by trying new things, testing your skills and learning new skills, exploring your creative side, meeting new people, visiting new places, and experiencing new cultures. When you experiment, you must also pay attention to how your body reacts and be willing to explore that side of you. That can also mean reinventing yourself and not allowing others to doubt you or negatively impact your journey. Most importantly, learning or changing your purpose is a continuous process. Your purpose changes throughout the day; whether it involves helping someone or learning a new skill to obtain a more challenging job, you are constantly finding a new purpose. When you frame “finding your purpose” in this light, it begins to take the pressure off, especially for those who have been told that your purpose is a big thing to find or something that follows a great epiphany about life.
Different Types of Careers in Various Fields
Once you understand your passions and current purpose, you begin to realize the variety of careers in various fields and how it makes the world go round. New technologies and inventions have given birth to new types of careers. There are many different types of jobs that people can do in their lifetime. They can work in a variety of fields and industries, and they can live a variety of lifestyles. The variety of careers in different fields is wide because the world needs a lot of people with different skill sets to make it function. According to CareerPlanner.com, over 12,000 careers, ranging from accountant to zoologist, have contrasting duties requiring unique skills. Take a look at our examples below, which include the job descriptions and outline the top three job role tasks for each.
Accountant
Basic Job Description (CareerPlanner.com):
Analyze financial information and prepare financial reports to determine or maintain a record of assets, liabilities, profit and loss, tax liability, or other financial activities within an organization.
1) Prepare, examine, and analyze accounting records, financial statements, and other financial reports to assess accuracy, completeness, and conformance to reporting and procedural standards.
2) Compute taxes owed and prepare tax returns, ensuring compliance with payment, reporting, and other tax requirements.
3) Analyze business operations, trends, costs, revenues, financial commitments, and obligations to project future revenues and expenses or to provide advice.
Zoologist
Basic Job Description (CareerPlanner.com):
Study the origins, behavior, diseases, genetics, and life processes of animals and wildlife. May specialize in wildlife research and management, including collecting and analyzing biological data to determine the environmental effects of present and potential use of land and water areas.
1) Study animals in their natural habitats, assess the effects of environment and industry on animals, interpret findings, and recommend alternative operating conditions for industry.
2) Inventory or estimate plant and wildlife populations.
3) Analyze the characteristics of animals to identify and classify them.
Although they are very different, they have similar factors, so it’s essential to consider your skill sets and how they can apply to different roles. Your current skillsets are more diverse than you think and should never limit you. That is not to say that an accountant should be a zoologist, but a career change is possible with education and training.
What Factors Should I Consider When Choosing My Career Path?
This is a question that many people are faced with, and it is not an easy one to answer. There are many factors to consider when choosing what career you want to pursue, including your personality traits, interests, strengths and weaknesses, and more.
If you are unsure about what career path to take, then you should consider the following factors:
- What is your passion?
- What skills do you have?
- What are the requirements for this career path?
- What is your personality type?
- How much money do you want to make?
- How much time do you want to put in every day?
- Do you want to work in an office or from home?
When choosing a career path, it is also essential to consider two things: the lily pad mind-set and the process of uprooting.
Lily Pad Career Mind-set
Adam Smiley Poswolsky wrote in his book The Quarter-Life Breakthrough: Invent Your Own Path, Find Meaningful Work, and Build a Life That Matters that the career ladder mind-set is an outdated way of thinking about work. He stated that career ladders are limiting because they decrease people’s abilities to try new job roles, work with new companies and people, and take career risks. Career ladders do not typically have an easily attainable way to get to “the top,” and they typically follow someone else’s idea of success. This mind-set pressures people to work hard now and rest later, which is why people burn out or lose interest in their careers early.
Poswolsky advocates the lily pad career mind-set, where careers are viewed as a series of lily pads coming from all directions. This mind-set aims to jump in any direction that seems interesting, speaks to your purpose, and makes sense to you. When we leap from lily pad to lily pad, we get a clearer idea of what we like to do. Most people want to align their work with their purpose. That also means your interests can change, and that’s okay, but checking in with yourself from time to time is essential to determine whether you are in the right career; not everyone can be happy in the same job role for 30 years.
Uprooting
Trying different job roles and careers can look like the lily pad career mind-set, but beware. Brianna Wiest, author of The Mountain is You, discusses the term “uprooting.” Wiest explains that uprooting is when we jump from job to job and interest to interest as a means of escaping or running away from something within ourselves. When we uproot, we start new somewhere else, whether it’s a new job or a new town. Wiest also states that people who like to uproot do so because they are more comfortable with sprouting instead of blossoming. Sprouters don’t have ways of dealing with stress or conflict in healthy ways, so uprooting takes their attention away from dealing with issues.
The way forward is to recognize the pattern and determine the drivers of each scenario. Wiest recommends being clear with yourself on what you want long-term. To do this, you must envision what it would look like if you were to stay in one place and create and nourish relationships there. Also, what would it look like to move up in your company or build your business? It is important to note that the purpose is not to settle on something you don’t enjoy doing but to be clear about what you want and create a plan to help you blossom.
It’s up to you to make your career work for you
There is no rush to find the ideal career or job role. You will not be 100% happy every day in whatever career you choose because that is life. Many factors affect your happiness and job satisfaction and are outside your control. However, you can do many things to make your career work for you. You can follow your passions, be patient, and stay open-minded. But most importantly, you must be willing to take risks and not fear failure.