Choosing a career in an activity that you like will make it an exciting one.
It doesn’t take a mastermind to figure out that choosing a career is one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make in your life. Perhaps your first career choice has not turned out to be what you thought it would be, and you’re looking for something different or more challenging.
Whether you’re just starting out in the work force or ready for a sea-change, it could be well worth taking the time to complete a career quiz to help match your own characteristics, abilities and interests to your career. The results might just surprise you!
Don’t Settle for Anything Less
Many Australian students completing their high school education fall short of the university entrance requirements for their chosen career and ‘settle’ for something entirely different, while many others enter university to study for the career they think would suit them, only to find they lack the dedication to follow through.
Basic Personality Styles
Studies have shown that people have certain basic personality styles that make them who they are. These styles influence the way they act, the way they reason, how they socialize and their behavioural traits. It’s thought that you’re born with these traits which are intrinsically wired to you individually.
A Vast Choice of Careers
When you consider the vast choice of careers and the millions of people in the workforce, it makes sense that not everyone is good at, or enjoys, doing the same thing!
For example:
- You may be an extrovert who loves talking to people and have a persuasive personality. Your personality style may suit a career in sales.
- Your best and most productive work may be done autonomously, and if you find it draining to have people around you, your career choice might include something creative or in the arts.
- Some people thrive on the adrenalin of a deadline and are problem solvers; if this is you, perhaps your career might lie in a high end corporate sector.
- If you’re a slower, more methodical thinker who likes to check and double check facts, perhaps a career in the sciences might be perfect for you.
DEEWR – A Great Resource for Career Planning
The Australian Government website ‘Job Outlook’ is an initiative of the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), designed to help you to choose a career. Here, you’ll find a jobs guide, career advice and data on the latest employment trends and different occupations.
Take a Career Quiz
While career tests are not designed to definitively change your life in the short or long term, taking a career quiz can be useful to help determine the different types of work that interest you, allowing you to pursue other options. It could help change the way you think about the job you’re in, and possibly help you to make a good career. You’ll be asked questions about specific tasks that you enjoy doing (regardless of your qualifications), and when you’ve completed the quiz, you’ll see results showing the areas that are most likely to fit as a career choice for you.
The ideal scenario is that everyone is happy in their chosen work. After all, the average person spends anything up to 30% of their lives earning an income. Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying ‘Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of’. Well said, Mr. Franklin!
Joanne Lemke is a final year creative writing student at UOW, who is looking to break into the corporate copywriting space once she graduates and hopefully go on to eventually some day write a book around her other passions, namely beauty, cooking and travel.
Leave a Reply