3 Considerations for Career Planning
When you’re starting university, major decisions include what school you want to attend and what major you’ll choose. Just as you start to feel comfortable, graduation nears and you need to decide on a career. To ensure you head down the ideal career path for you, think about factors like what kind of work you’ll enjoy, what will give you the lifestyle you want, and what will allow you to meet your goals. With this in mind, there are three main factors to consider when thinking about career planning.
1. How Will Your Career Fulfill Your Purpose?
It’s important to think about your purpose now because it may have changed since you started university. The experiences you’ve had will have shaped you, and you will have learned more about the world, which may have changed your values and your sense of what matters most.
Craft a personal mission statement for yourself that describes your identity and motivations. Use this to explore what you want to achieve and the impact you want to have on the world. Make sure you consider your skills and the possibilities open to you to ensure your ideas are realistic. Use all this information to start creating a plan of how to move forward.
2. What Kind of People Do You Want to Surround Yourself With?
One of the factors you likely considered when choosing a university to attend was the other students. A similar consideration applies to your career planning. Since you’ll spend a large amount of time with your coworkers, it’s crucial to find people you can call friends and mentors. If you consider your own identity when choosing a career, you should naturally find that you surround yourself with likeminded people.
3. Is Flexibility Important to You?
Some people want to work at a job with traditional hours to maintain the same kind of structure they’ve had throughout their school years. Others are willing to sacrifice some of their free time occasionally — such as if the work involves overtime, irregular hours, or even fieldwork in other locations — if it’s for an important cause.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are people who desire as much flexibility as possible. They may want to work from home some days (perhaps every day), choose their own hours to fit work around other commitments, or even work part time to spend the rest of their time on a side project that may later become a full-time business.
Think about where you stand to ensure you take a route that matches the lifestyle you want.
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