Choosing the right career
We all have two choices in life. One is to do what people want us to do. Second is to do what we really want to do. It is a lucky situation if our personal ambition matches with the expectations of the people that matter. However, in most cases, taking important decisions is quite difficult and confusing. Even if we forget the expectations of people, we ourselves are often confused about our own likings and dislikings. Being confused when it comes to choosing which ice-cream to eat on a Sunday afternoon is perfectly acceptable, but being confused when it comes to taking decisions on serious matters can cause a lot of heart-ache.For example, a person may be equally interested in physics and biology. How does this person decide which of the two streams to choose? Probably, the right answer is biophysics! However, the answer is not so easy in many cases. What if the person is interested in music and engineering, and is not able to decide between the two? Also, personal interest in a field is not always the single determining factor. There are practical concerns too. One may be very much interested in teaching school kids. But if that profession does not pay enough to run the person's household, he/she will not be able to do it no matter how much interesting it is at a personal level. And, to make things even more complicated, there are many other factors that need to be considered.
Quantitative analysis often helps where qualitative analysis fails. In other words, a systematic way of thinking can be of great help in taking tough decisions compared to the usual brooding that we often indulge in. We would like to suggest a few steps that may be of help:
- Make a list of the various career options that interest you.
- Make a list of factors that you would like your career option to have. For example,
- Interest in the work
- Amount of freedom available in the job
- Monetary benefits
- Number of work hours and holidays
- Traveling requirements
- Geographical factors: Is the career option available only in select cities?
- Flexibility to work from home
- Preference of working in small teams or big teams
- Any other things that may be of importance to you
- Talk to people and read interviews of people working in the careers listed by you and see how these options fare according to the above list of desirable traits. You might also give a rating out of 10 to each career option for each of the above listed traits.
- Make a grand total of the ratings for each career option.
- If you are not happy with the one that emerged as the winner, repeat the steps till you converge.
