How do I choose a career?

Know yourself

Career choice is all about you, and no-one can make the decision for you.　
Try to answer the following questions:　

• Where do I want to get to in life?    
• What kind of lifestyle do I want?    
• How important is job satisfaction to me?　　　  
• What do I like/dislike doing?    
• What interests me? (You may have hobbies you could turn into a career.)　　　  
• What am I good at?    
• What could I be good at if I tried it or worked harder?　　  

These last two may be really difficult to answer. Think about the things you do in everyday life
Even being able to get out of bed in the morning is a skill.  

Know what's available

There are thousands of different careers out there but you may only have heard of a few.
Often people have difficulty choosing a career because they haven't even heard of the ones that would be an ideal match for them. You can find out about them by doing some career research.

A good source of local career information can be found by using a  Careers Database

Find out more about careers you have heard of and it will lead you to ones you haven't heard of or thought of.

Teachers, friends, family and television may be able to give you ideas but make sure what ever information you get is realistic and accurate. For example, you may like CSI but there are at least 5 different real jobs represented by one in such programs.

Location - Are you prepared to travel, or move away from Merseyside?
If not you may need to narrow your career options based on what is available locally.
Connexions can give you more information on the local labour market.

Narrowing down the options

Computer-based career packages, such as Kudos and Fast Tomato, can help narrow the choices down a bit by matching possible careers to your interests.
They may not suggest your ideal job but they may give you some ideas.
You may not know what career you want, but you may know what you don't want.
Discard the jobs that you don't want.

It is extremely difficult to work out if a career is right for you without trying it out.
You can arrange work experience, or volunteering, to help with this.

If you have a few ideas you may not need to choose between them yet.
Try to keep all of your options open