The choice of a career enables individuals to choose the right education and necessary skills required to drive one towards a career of interest. This involves being cautious about the decisions you make, by giving them great thought so as to set you on the right path. To make such a lifelong decision you need a lot of research and time too. I am going to split down sub-topics entailing what a career is, the various career paths, and considerations in choosing a suitable career.
Meaning of a Career
According to the Oxford dictionary, a career is an occupation undertaken for a significant period of a person’s life and with opportunities for progress. A career can also be termed as a profession, calling, vocation, job, and occupation among other definitions. This could be serving as a lawyer, teacher, doctor, chef, model, journalist, engineer, banker, and hairstylist among other broad careers available.
A career could also be defined as a passage and steps undertaken throughout your service in relation to one’s occupation. A career is built by the various jobs one has done, titles held and the service to the organization you have accomplished over time. A career is made up of your development process and advancement made in one’s profession. A single career can comprise many different jobs put together.
Examples of Career Paths
There exists a number of career paths recognized.
Multiple unrelated jobs: Your career could be made up of numerous jobs that are unrelated to one another. For example, you could work as a sales associate in a retail environment, then as a server in a restaurant, and then as a receptionist in a veterinary clinic. Because each job is vastly different than the next, there is no way to predict what your next position will be. Because they have very little in common, you may not see significant pay increases from one to the next or significant increases in responsibility.
Advancing within one occupation: This path involves advancing in the same occupation, whether you work for the same organization or at different establishments. For example, if you are working as a cashier, you could eventually be moved to a customer service position where you operate a cash register but also handle customer service issues. Eventually, you could be moved to a head cashier position, supervising the other cashiers.
Advancing in the same industry but not occupation: This path involves staying in the same industry, but not necessarily the same occupation. For example, if your goal is to be a manager at a restaurant, you could start out as a dishwasher, then move to a server position, then head server or assistant manager, and eventually manager.
Examples of career paths
In order to help you understand how career paths can progress, it can be helpful to review career paths for a variety of different careers. Be aware that some career paths, like those that advance within one occupation, are direct and others are indirect and can involve working in different industries or different types of jobs.
- Customer service and sales: Customer service representative -> inside sales representative -> outside salesperson -> account executive -> sales manager
- Editorial: Editorial assistant -> assistant editor -> editor -> senior editor -> editorial director
- Education: Teacher -> curriculum coordinator -> assistant principal -> principal
- Retail: Sales associate -> assistant management -> store manager -> regional manager
- Human resources: HR assistant -> HR specialist -> assistant director of HR -> director of HR
Tips for finding the right career path
- Network regularly
- Be a lifelong learner
- Pay attention to industry news
- Make plans but be flexible
- Be ready for career shifts
- Be open to lateral moves