What to consider when making a career choice

are not really receiving enough career coaching.
You are already wondering what career coaching means right? Well, not to worry. This article helps you broadly understand the definitions of career coaching and also career counselling, highlighting the difference of the two terms.

Career used to be loosely defined as what one does to make a living, or to earn money, but now it is better defined as a series of work rules, that one undertakes throughout his or her lifetime, which include learning rules, leisure rules etc.

Career cannot be separated from our lives, because the moment you are born your career begins.
It encompasses together our learning life (education), our working life (employment) and our social life (our life beyond learning and working, e.g. relationships).
Career coaching is the proactive way of assisting people to advance in their professional life, whereas career counselling is a process to ensure that people are provided with adequate information on local labour markets and educational options in order for them to make the right career decision.

The most important question to answer is; how do you make the right career choice or better still how can you realign the career choice you have been making all along to suit your personality type so that you are in the place you really belong, thus deriving fulfilment from the work you do?
Broadly speaking as, three major factors are essential in helping you the right career choices.

Knowing who you are
Knowing who you are is simply the life-long process of finding yourself, or better put personal discovery. You are out to find your weaknesses and strengths so that you are able to know what you can or cannot do.

You will need to identify your values, interests, skills, ambition as well as your personality types. These factors determine areas or careers you can best function and excel in. We are formed differently and therefore we have different responses to different work environs. Your personality type influences the kind of work environment you perfectly fit in, for example some people are really good at fixing things, while some are good with numbers generally.

So it is important for one to have self-awareness if they should make the right career choice.

Knowing the professional world
Our gifting and abilities are necessary in the world of work either as an employee or entrepreneur, therefore, knowing yourself is not enough. We need to explore the world of work to be aware of the opportunities available, where we can exercise our gifts and talents into productive works.

The world of work consists of industries. Within each of these industries peculiar occupations or professions are found, e.g a doctor is a profession in the medical industry, while a hotelier is a profession in the tourism or hospitality industry.

Knowing the profession therefore helps you to identify which path of industry or profession you belong to. For instance some people who have aptitude for numbers and calculations could belong to the banking and finance industry and or work as accountants or financial analyst.

Understanding the educational world
It is not enough to know who you are and to understand the world of work.
Understanding the world of learning helps to identify which type of educational programme will give you the right knowledge, skills and attitudes to excel in the profession of your choice.

The risk is that without understanding the educational world, you might pursue training which might not discover and develop the potentials that are already deposited within you which then lead to many frustrations when you are eventually in the professional work world.

Many people end up frustrated because their education has not conditioned and prepared them to function in the professional world they have chosen, but rather the only outcome of their education is the certificate that they hold.

Some, who are unaware of self, have just gone to school to get any educational certificate so that they can get any job that is available, and thus they pursued education which never developed them.

As you can see, the path of making a career choice is not one you can make entirely on your own.
You need to seek the help of the people around you to help you discover yourself, educational experts and career experts to walk you through the various options available.
Till next week guys God bless you all.