College Advisor Mom
by Mary Davis
The poll topic from last month asked, “What most appeals to you about your current profession/job?” Even when women are not feeling completely energized by their work, they can usually come up with something they do like about their position. The results of our poll, once again did not present one answer that was chosen far above all others. It seems women have a number of reasons to like their positions that are of fairly equal importance to them.
Among the four choices, “the opportunity to help others” came in first with 40% of the vote. A close second was, “the collaboration within my profession/company” at 30%. The third most chosen answer received 25% of the vote and was, “the challenge it provides.” Finally, only 6% of those who participated in last months poll indicated that, “the opportunity to shape the path of the company” was what most appealed to them about their current job.
These questions, and others along this vein, are important to consider when looking to make a career change or even advance in your current line of work. A contributing factor to job dissatisfaction is a dissonance between personal values and professional atmosphere. One needs to be aware of the kind of corporate climate or on-the-job working conditions in a particular career before deciding to pursue that job; otherwise, the chances of being unhappy at work will increase.
For example, the ability to help people was the number one answer in our poll. That’s a very noble and popular goal among workers, particularly women. It’s a good idea to research the various ways you can improve the lives of people, though, before deciding on a helping career. When you think of helping people, the image that first comes to mind may be working directly one on one with clients in need. However, for an introverted person, working directly with the public can be exhausting. Perhaps a job behind the scenes in a helping profession would be more suited to such an individual.
There are ways to match up various occupations with a person’s individual aptitudes and characteristics. A visit to your school’s career services department is a great place to start. A career counselor can talk to you, provide resources and administer various inventories like the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory to help guide you on your path to career development and choosing a major. While such inventories won’t give you all the answers about to the career that’s just right for you, they can provide much-needed information on the types of jobs that best fit your personality.
I always recommend doing your research. Once you have a potential list of professions to consider, find out all you can about them. Your career counselor will be able to provide you with resources on salary, work environment, geographic regions with the highest employment rate per industry and other relative information. Then consider taking an introductory course in that particular field to get a more in-depth view of the profession. For example, Intro to Business can provide a summary of the field of business and insights to the field you would otherwise not be exposed to. After taking an introductory course, students often find out fairly quickly if that field of study is a good fit for them.
Basically, it boils down to some introspection paired with knowledge of your particular field of interest. Take some time to learn about yourself and consider what’s important to you in a job and what your strengths are. Then, begin to learn about what different career paths of interest have to offer. Taking these steps will help to lead you to a profession that offers many appealing aspects for you.
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