What careers should I consider?

There are a few approaches to exploring career options, but firstly it is important to consider the different variables that would influence your career choices.  For example, is money something that is important?  Or does the travel/distance to work make a difference?  Does the level of satisfaction of the work matter?  Most likely all of these matter to a certain degree or perhaps there are other things not listed that also matter.  On an individual level, you will want to weigh out the pros/cons of each and from there build a list of items that are essential for your satisfaction.  You will want to list the items from most important to least important.

From there, you can start to explore some questionnaires that might help you to further narrow down the types of jobs that suit your personality.  You can take a battery test; these types of tests give you a list of careers that would suit you well based on the responses you enter.  There is also a questionnaire called the RIASEC test; also referred to as the Holland test.  This one assesses your personality based on 6 personality characteristics.  This would include realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional.  Taking a career test of this nature will be able to further explain the logic/reasoning to why they recommend certain types of careers.  So if the battery test is too vague, the Holland test might be helpful.  Both tests can be found through a simple Google search and should be free to take.   

Once you obtain the results from a career test, you would want to compare the career recommendations to the list of important variables you created.  You can look for careers that would most resemble the variables that you wrote up.  The ideal situation is that you would locate a career that encompasses all or most of the items on your list, but you also need to consider if that career option is feasible for you to pursue.  So consider is the career choice available to apply for; if not you may need to consider another option that is similar maybe.  Exploring all of these options can be confusing and overwhelming; try to remind yourself that nothing in life is permanent.  So if you choose a career path and it doesn’t work out or fit right for you in the long run, there are always other options to choose from.  As the phrase says, “The world is your oyster.”  So get out there and explore!