Career Planning Process — 5 Steps to Choosing a Career

Your career is something that you identify yourself with and therefore people put in lot of thought in choosing and planning their respective careers. Generally, the process of career planning starts during the school time itself as that is the period when you can build a strong base for yourself to shape up your career.

careerplanningprocess

To effectively plan your career path, you can follow the following steps –

Planning & Discussion 

If majority of your time and effort goes in planning then implementation becomes a cake walk. It is good to get clarity on what you want to achieve in your career, as early as you can and that comes through introspection and discussions. Self analysis is the first step and If you are confounded about your career choice then you can seek advice from your teachers, parents and counselors. Once you get that clarity, channelize your efforts towards your goal.

Look for the stepping stone 

Once you have given a thorough thought to your career aspirations, start to list down the ways and means that would act as a stepping stone to achieve your career goal. E.g. If you wish to be a fashion designer or an engineer, lawyer then you will have to figure out the institutes that can provide you with the best coaching and prepare you to face the competition. So at this stage, you need to postulate different Institutes or other platforms through which you can gather initial learning about your long term career goal.

Evaluate different options

Once you have listed down different options, evaluate them on different parameters such as suitability, return on investment and to what extent that would serve your key purpose. Here, you need to remember that you will have to define your own criteria for evaluation, something that is suitable for someone else might not be very suitable for you. So be very meticulous during evaluation of different platforms for accomplishing your goals as your current choices would largely impact your career prospects.

Try to get hands on experience

Do a part time Job or join an internship related to your area of interest. The best experience comes from getting your hands dirty in the field and the knowledge that you gain on the job endows better learning as compared to theoretical knowledge. By directly working in your field of interest at an early age, you get to understand the nitty-gritty of your work and that helps to make your career path ahead, relatively smooth.

Read a lot

Reading enhances your scope of knowledge and therefore it is important to read as much as you can about your area of interest. It provides you with the detailed overview of the current and future prospects of the career that you aspire to choose. Read about other people’s experiences and their career path, their success stories and what benefits they are reaping out of it currently. Planning and execution can go for a toss if you do not do enough ground work, therefore, read thoroughly about your subject, so that there are no impediments to smooth execution of your planning.

As rightly said, sow the seeds today to enjoy the fruits in future. Similarly, plan your career wisely today to make a brighter future for yourself.

Previous articleHow Men and Women Think Differently about Money
Next articleWhy is the Indian media losing its credibility?
Niharika Kalra
Niharika is an avid blogger and likes to write on topics related to general life, humour and Bollywood. She works as a full time professional with a multinational company. Her hobbies include dancing, writing, travelling and exploring new places. She is a very friendly, interactive and creative person who likes to take up new challenges and meet new people.

1 COMMENT

  1. Hey
    One of the important questions in a student’s life after school or college is what to do next. There are times when students get confused about which career to choose and which not to. To make this doubt clear, the best option for the students is career counseling. In recent times, career counseling is considered as the most significant factor that helps the student in identifying the starting point about the career. The best part of this career counseling is that an analysis can be done for the candidates that will help in finding their interests.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here