Finding Your Path: A Guide to Discovering Your Dream Career

Introduction

Did you know that nearly 70% of college students change their majors at least once? Figuring out the right career path can be challenging. Throughout my life, I’ve encountered dozens of people who needed a little nudge in the right direction, or the right bit of information placed in their hands to make a decision or change paths. I’d like to share ideas on how to discover a meaningful career with the hope that it provides a little direction or bit of rope to get out of whatever ditch you feel stuck in.

Identifying Your Interests

I see you, excited about graduating, or maybe you’re even in college right now, but you have no idea what to major in or which direction to go. Maybe you don’t feel like college is even the right choice for you. Here’s what you can do to figure out a path forward…

Step 1: Try a Free Online Myers-Briggs Personality Test

The Myers-Briggs assessment tool helps people understand their own personality and can help you determine a career path based on your preferences. Check out 16 Personalities at https://www.16personalities.com/ for an unofficial free test. The official Myers-Briggs test can be found online at https://www.mbtionline.com/.

Myers-Briggs identifies 16 different personalities broken into 4 groups: Analysts, Diplomats, Sentinels, and Explorers. Within the Sentinel group there are Logisticians who are practical and fact-minded with a personality that’s grounded, reliable, and logical even under stress. Examples of careers within this group are accountants, auditors, financial managers and doctors. If you’re more of an extrovert, you’ll likely want a role within the Sentinel group that allows you to interact with people versus the introvert who prefers solitary tasks. Learning about the different personality types is fun and a great way to match your character to careers.

Step 2: Reflect on Your Favorite Subjects

Ask yourself, “What was my favorite class in school?” Then take that a step further and try to remember if you had a favorite chapter or topic in that class. Nearly every topic in your coursework has a career tied to it. Maybe your favorite topic wasn’t in the classroom but was out of it. What did you enjoy? What were you the most passionate about? What activities do you lose track of time doing? Stop worrying about the money. If you’re passionate about something, then you’ll be very good at it and the money will likely follow. You also don’t have to earn 6-figures to be happy.

Exploring Career Options

Most people tend to follow careers they’ve grown up around and have some level of familiarity with because they’ve heard their parents, grandparents, neighbors, or family friends talk about them. But what interests you, specifically? Maybe it’s more than one thing, like math and football. Just marry those interests together and you’ll discover careers you’ve never even thought of.

Step 3: Use Technology to Research Careers

If I ask ChatGPT to give me careers that include the interests of math and football I get a list of ideas that include Sports Analyst, Sports Betting Analyst or Handicapper, Performance Analyst, Sports Data Scientist, Sports Economist, Actuary for Sports Organizations, Operations Research Analyst, and Financial Analyst for Sports Teams.

Let’s try something more complex — if I ask ChatGPT for careers that include the interests of fashion, cooking, and Spanish it returns ideas such as International Fashion Buyer or Merchandiser, Chef specializing in Spanish cuisine, Hotel or Restaurant Manager in Spanish-speaking countries or those that cater to Spanish-speaking clientele, Travel Consultant that specializes in culinary and fashion tours, Fashion or Culinary Journalist, and Cultural Consultant.

Step 4: Networking and Mentorship

These are specific roles that you can then research independently. They’re a lot more focused than saying, “I want to major in Sports” or “Journalism.” Google your results and read about those careers. Then try LinkedIn. Go on LinkedIn and search for people who have these titles, or similar ones. Draft a list of questions and reach out to them.

Real-Life Examples

For my son, we did this his Senior year of high school. He messaged several people and explained that he was a high school student looking into the career role that LinkedIn member had held, then asked what college they went to, about their career path, and what advice they might have for him? Every single person he reached out to responded, offered advice, and told him he could contact them at any time in the future. One thing I’ve learned is that people usually enjoy talking about their careers and most industry veterans do want to help younger generations get a start. My son also discovered that the LinkedIn members he contacted had all attended and recommended the same university, which happened to have one of the largest programs in the world for the major he was considering.

Gaining Practical Experience

The next thing you can do is to locate people in your area who are in the career that interests you and find out if you can meet with and shadow them for a day. Having access to someone in an occupation that interests you and being able to observe their work environment firsthand can give you a good idea of what your day may look and feel like if you choose that career path. Go with a list of questions. I have a son who was interested in becoming an independent Optometrist. He created the opportunity to shadow our family eye doctor and set out to learn the difference between being independent versus working with a corporation, the costs of setting up a practice and buying equipment, level of staff needed, advertising, having an in-house Optician and carrying inventory, Optometry schools, and required coursework.

Lunch Meetings and Interviews

If you can’t shadow someone during their workday, ask if you can buy them lunch so you can spend a little time asking them about their profession. My youngest son did this with a corporate attorney. His list of questions centered around what their typical workday looked like, law schools, any collegiate clubs, volunteer work or other organizations they had been involved in, and how they had gotten into the industry they were in.

Again, ChatGPT could be useful in developing a list of interview questions that will help bring a potential career alive and provide a glimpse into its daily rhythm. When I asked it to create a list of questions to ask a Food Scientist, a few of the ones it suggested:

· How do you collaborate with other departments or professionals, such as chefs, marketing teams, or regulatory agencies?

· Can you give an example of a product you worked on from concept to market? What was the process like?

· What technical skills are most important for a food scientist to have?

· How much of your work involves hands-on experimentation versus data analysis or administrative tasks?

Step 5: Following Up

In either case, be sure to send a follow-up thank you letter to the person you shadowed or interviewed as that can go a long way. Connect with them on LinkedIn immediately afterward too. The corporate attorney told my youngest son, who was a college freshman, to let them know when he was ready for an internship.

Step 6: Utilizing Your Network

If you’re a parent or grandparent of someone who’s trying to figure out their future, you can assist by helping connect them to people within your own circle of co-workers and friends who are in positions that interest them. A number of careers also involve choosing an area of expertise. For my son interested in becoming a corporate attorney, there are different areas he could focus in: tax, mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property, corporate, employment, securities, contracts, and governance. Meeting and talking to different attorneys in these roles helped guide him to the one that held the most interest for him.

Conclusion

Trying to find a career that is a good fit can feel overwhelming. With so many choices, narrowing them down to focus on something specific might appear daunting. However, by utilizing the right strategies, you can discover a career that aligns with your personality and passions. Here are some steps to guide you:

• Try taking a Myers-Briggs personality test to learn how your individual character fits with different careers.
• Start with what interests you the most and utilize tools like ChatGPT to begin researching options.
• Reach out to people within that field. Utilize social media like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram to contact professionals across the world in roles you’re researching and inquire about their career path.
• Try to meet someone who is in the exact job you’d like to be in. Create a list of questions to gain insights into any barriers to entering that field, costs, career progression, clubs and organizations that will help you network, universities or vocational schools that provide the education you’ll need, certifications or licenses required, and what the day-to-day work really looks like.
• Take notes and use them to create a plan on how to move forward.
• Network with everyone you talk to and send them a thank-you note. You never know who can help you in the future within your network, so start building it now.
• Follow your passion and listen to your instincts. If a potential career makes you feel anxious, doesn’t excite you, or give you a feeling of peace, then it’s the wrong one for you.
• Trust your intuition — you’ve got this!

By following these steps, you can navigate the complex process of career discovery and find a path that brings you fulfillment and success. Remember, finding the right career is not just about the destination but also about the journey of self-discovery and personal growth.