Choosing a Career - Getting to know yourself

Getting to know yourself

• Your aptitude
• Your skills
• Your personality
• The level of responsibility that suits you
• Your interests
• Your needs
• Your priorities
• Summary

What do you do well? What do you enjoy doing?

Your answers to these two questions will help you identify your strengths. An employer will consider you seriously for a position when you can show them that you know who you are, what you can offer and where you are going.

Sometimes it is difficult to know what your weaknesses are. Clearly not everyone is equally good at everything. You may need to improve in some areas and so taking courses in that area could turn a weakness into strength.

You will need to spend some time on your self-assessment. Your honesty and the desire for self-improvement will lead to success in getting the right job.

Explore the following seven areas to start to get to know yourself: your aptitude, your skills, your personality, the level of responsibility you feel comfortable with, your interests and your needs.

Your aptitude

If you try an activity and find you pick it up quickly, you may have an aptitude for occupations related to that activity. On the other hand, with training, either on the job or by doing courses, you may learn new tasks and find that you have an aptitude for some of them.

Ask yourself some questions. Are there some things you find easier to learn than others? If so, what? Do you have any special talents? Do you need to consider your physical health when choosing a job? Be as honest and realistic as you can, and ask for other people's opinions if necessary. Make a list of these things. It is usually a good idea to talk about your aptitudes with teachers, family and friends.

If you are considering a career that requires a special talent, such as art, acrobatics, mathematics or music, discuss your aptitudes with an expert in that area and discover how they fit the needs of the occupation.

The result of your questioning and self-examination might be a list like this:

• found graphic art, computing and maths easy
• often work with my hands, can learn new sewing stitches easily
• like public speaking and debating
• started to learn a musical instrument, not good enough to be a professional musician yet
• physical health OK, not sporty, good eyesight.

Your skills

A skill is something you have learnt to do by applying your aptitudes and knowledge. Any tasks, which you can already do to a reasonable standard, may help you to get a job in a related field.

Make a list of the skills you have. This list may include a range of things, such as knowledge of another language, knowing how to operate machines or equipment, having licences and permits, or holding tickets, certificates and diplomas.

Your list might look like this:

• use a computerised cash register /EFTPOS efficiently
• develop and print photographs to a professional standard
• speak Japanese fluently
• make saleable jewellery
• build good relationships between people.

Your personality

The sort of occupation you enjoy will depend on your personality, because every occupation calls for certain personal qualities. Make a list of your personal qualities. Be honest with yourself and include them all, even those you do not like. Remember your personal qualities are not good or bad, but just more or less suited to certain occupations.

Sometimes outsiders see things about you that you had not thought of yourself, so ask parents and friends to describe your personal qualities too. When making your list, you could divide it into 'qualities I have a lot of' and 'qualities I have little of'. You might end up with lists like these.

Qualities I have a lot of:

• friendliness
• ability to work alone
• ambition.

Qualities I have little of:

• patience
• attention to detail
• organisational ability
• tolerance for routine.

The level of responsibility that suits you

Certain characteristics of the occupation itself, such as the degree of responsibility, supervision or decision-making required can also influence your choice.

Some people like to work alongside others as part of a team, thereby sharing responsibility, for example nurses, police officers or flight attendants. In these cases your work depends upon what the others are doing, and they depend on you. Do you enjoy team sports or working on projects as part of a group? If so, perhaps team-work would suit you.

In other occupations you may be working on your own without regular interaction with other people. In some occupations this may involve attending to money matters, supervising other people's work or making decisions that will affect your staff. A hospital administrator, company secretary or hotel manager works with this high level of responsibility. Similarly being self-employed also requires these attributes, for example, journalists, farriers and architects who work for themselves; or perhaps in your own business, as a plumber, chef or engineer.

Do you like to make your own decisions and act upon them? Are you good at organising? What are your own experiences with supervision? Have you ever been a class captain or group leader? Do others look to you to make a decision? If you want to work independently, without someone looking over your shoulder, you need to realise that there may be no one there to help you with any problems that may arise.

Think about how much supervision, responsibility and decision making you would be comfortable with in a job. Bear in mind, however, that you may find your feelings about these things change once you are trained and gain experience in a job.

Your interests

Consider your interests. The activities you enjoy at school and in your spare time may provide useful clues to the type of work that would interest you. For example, caring for pets may lead to you becoming a veterinarian. Remember though that some hobbies are best kept as hobbies. You may enjoy playing computer games and surfing the net, but this doesn't mean you necessarily want to work in the IT industry eight hours or more a day. Chat rooms might be your way to relax.

Make a list, dividing your interests into work interests and hobbies, like this: Work interests:

• caring for sick animals
• being creative and original
• using my brain to solve problems
• helping people.

Hobby interests:

• fixing the bike
• playing guitar and listening to music
• playing sports-football, swimming
• going to the movies or theatre.

Your needs

Think about what you would like an occupation to offer you. List these in order of importance to you. Unfortunately, you may have to sacrifice one need to meet another. For example, you may want a regular income, yet also want the independence of being self-employed. This will mean that you will have to make a decision about what is most important to you. To help you decide, write down what it is about each value that is important to you. For example, if you list job satisfaction as a need, alongside it describe what you actually mean by job satisfaction.

Your list may look something like this: I would like:

• stimulating and challenging work; not always doing the same thing; being able to introduce new ideas
• a secure job-with a reliable employer
• contact with people-working with others or in a team; helping people
• regular income-being able to plan ahead financially
• independence-being self-employed.

Your priorities

Your choice of career will also affect other areas of your life. It can determine your level of education and training, your rates of pay, your promotional prospects, where you are located, your hours of work, and your working conditions. These, in turn, will affect your future lifestyle: where you will live; which house and car you will buy; your clothes; social life; sports and leisure activities. It's fairly complicated.

For example:

• Rates of pay decide what kind of lifestyle you can afford.
• Promotional prospects may be more important than pay. You may choose to start in a lower paid occupation, which has better training and promotional opportunities.
• Your occupation will affect where you live. For some occupations you have to live in a particular area. Other occupations require you to move to another area, for example, teachers may be expected to work in country schools.
• Hours of work have a big influence on a worker's social, sporting and family life. Hospitality, leisure and tourism industries, along with occupations such as medical practitioners, cleaners, and jobs in the emergency services are not suitable if you like regular hours and free weekends.
• Working conditions can also play a part in forming your lifestyle. A worker on an oil rig or fishing boat is likely to have a different lifestyle from a hairdresser or computer programmer.
• Being your own boss appeals to many people.

The trick is to strike a balance between your lifestyle plans and your career aspirations. Again, list these in order of importance to you. Remember that some of your values are likely to change as you get older, so you should keep your options open. The list of your social or lifestyle needs may look something like this:

• regular hours and free weekends
• live in the country
• helping other people.

Summary

This has been a self-examination step. Make sure you have included everything about yourself that might be related to your job choice. Have you a fairly clear picture of yourself at present? As you discover more about yourself and about jobs, you may change your ideas so be prepared to revise your lists from time to time.