Choosing a career path: Thought about yours?
There is NO one career path for all…
Often times people confuse future trends with the optimal career path for themselves, when their perception entails that there’s one best path to take for everyone. So, to begin with, there is NO one optimal career path for all, or in other words one size cannot fit all. Because beyond just future trends, there are other very critical factors to one’s success in choosing the right career, such as talent coupled with sincere passion.
2 = 2 x 1
Understand the need, but also what it takes to succeed. We live in a demand/supply world; regardless of what you have to offer (supply), if you don’t have the right demand for it, then what is the point? Likewise, regardless of what the future (demand) will look like, if you can’t address it, then you have no supply. To simplify things for you, assume the following formula:
Future Prospects = Your Passion x Your Strength
The reality is that you are in control of one (your supply of strength and passion), but not the other (market demand and future prospects). And the question here is: How can you align what’s in your control to the one that’s not.
Know your passion and strengths
Did you notice the ‘x’ in the formula above? Your supply of profession being made up of passion and strengths, would mean that without one you won’t have the other. Strengths will help you best respond to the demands of the market, but passion and drive are what will keep you going.
“Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” – Mark Twain
Let’s break it all up and then put it all back together. You want to know where you should start, besides just where you should head in your career. Try to think of what you are really good at, along with what you really love doing. Most times, you will find something in common, which you both are good at and love doing.
As humans, we use comparison as the best way to evaluate anything, whether it is in business or our personal lives. Hence, it’s not just about how good you are, but also, how good you are relative to others in the same field; and this emphasizes the importance of finding your talent and leveraging the opportunity to excel at it, in order to stand out. Because at the end of the day, a business judgment which you will continuously encounter in your career, will compare you against others, and unless you bring something to the table (what you’re good or hopefully exceptional at), you will be at a disadvantage. If aligned with the right trends and where the world is heading, driven excellence should bring success.
Example: Think of technology and how it will change the world and how potential career paths which you are exploring can be impacted. To illustrate, just because technology is the future does not mean you have to become a technologist or any of the other relevant professions. You just need to know how technology might affect your field of interest and tailor your career path accordingly.
Align with external factors
If you have clarity on what you are best at and love doing, start thinking of external factors like the region you would work in and the sectors which have high potential, as sectoral developments vary a lot based on the location. For example, a first-world country like the United States has a highly developed and mature Information Technology and Software sector.
Saudi Arabia’s emerging economy on the other hand has been mainly dependent on its oil natural resources but is also undergoing a huge transformation which showcases a promising potential in many new sectors, including IT and Software. It is important to link internal factors (your strength and passion) with external factors (future trends). The key is to always find links and connections between stages of your career path. What will your story be?
Do something about it
Based on your career ambitions, set directional goals for yourself. At this point you may not have to be very specific and strict about it. You can certainly define your career goals and how you want to be in five or ten years from now, but there are many ways to get there, so it is important to also be opportunity-driven and understand the different paths you could take to achieve the same goals. This will allow you to take short-cuts sometimes in your career to get to where you want to be.
Example: Think of Google Maps for a second. You plan your morning before going to sleep, looking at the different routes you could take to get to your morning destination and choose the shortest one in distance, which at that time has the earliest ETA (Expected Time of Arrival) as well. But then you wake up in the morning and find out that Google Maps is suggesting a totally different route, adjusted to the traffic situation at that time. Take the new route and you can consider yourself opportunity-driven.
Go the extra mile
Parallel to, before or after the previous point, you’ll want to start networking and learning from others in the field(s) you want to enter or the path(s) you consider taking. Reach out to people working in the field you’re interested in, via LinkedIn or other channels, for short informational interviews, to learn from them what their job is like, and open a channel which you could apply through if that is what you end up wanting to do; networking has never been easier, but what is your story to tell?
These were my thoughts on choosing a career path; what are yours?
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