Employers are more likely to hire candidates who love their work and who know and care about the industry, according to CollegeJournal.com, The Wall Street Journal’s site for career-minded college students. Students who are not sure what interests them need to identify their favorite skills and subjects, determine what motivates them and then use this information to identify a short list of potential jobs and industries.
The best methods to determine your career interests include taking career assessments, writing personal success stories, reading job descriptions and conducting informational interviews, advises Tony Lee, editor in chief of CollegeJournal.com.
Career assessments are standardized career-assessment tools that can help broaden your options, confirm hunches and indicate what type of working conditions are ideal for you. Typically, a career professional will want to meet with you to find out which assessments are best for you. Once you’ve taken a test, you’ll be scheduled for a follow-up appointment to review the results. Ideally, this session will be interactive, with most of the insights coming from you, not from the career counselor.
Another, more intuitive way to gain self-knowledge is to complete a personal success story exercise. Think of a time when you accomplished something that made you especially proud. Then write a few paragraphs describing what you did, how you did it and the outcome. After you’ve written five or six of these success stories, review what you’ve written and underline the verbs. Themes will emerge once you identify the skills you used, the recurring subjects and the patterns in the outcomes. Knowing what motivates you -- and what doesn’t -- can lead to informed and rewarding job decisions.
Once you have a sense of your favorite skills and subjects, ask yourself how these might translate into possible careers, says Lee. You can also narrow down a list of job possibilities by researching common jobs, including the nature of the work, earnings, working conditions and resources for more information.
Another way of gathering information about different professions is to set up informational interviews with people who are doing the kind of work in which you’re interested. During the interview, observe how this person’s job does or doesn’t fit your skills, interests and motivations. Ask the person questions such as, How did you get into this profession? What do you like best about your work? What do you like least? What does it take to succeed in this line of work?
Don’t automatically dismiss industries that aren’t glamorous or with which you’re unfamiliar, notes Lee. If the job offers you get are not for your ’dream job,’ be realistic - you’ve got to start somewhere.
CollegeJournal.com offers ways to choose a career you’ll love
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