5 Pro Techniques For Making The Right Career Decision
The decision to enter a new career or recalibrate your old one can be a tough call, both physically and emotionally. Like many professionals, you may ask yourself questions such as “how do I know if this is the correct career trajectory for me?” or “what kind of growth can I expect from this career?”
Such questions are only natural. After all, choosing a career is an important decision that can not only have an impact on your financial growth but also shape your identity as a person. It has, perhaps, become even more important today, with an unparalleled plethora of career choices available to professionals.
So, how do you make the most appropriate career decision? It all begins by adopting techniques that can help you analyze the available career choices, narrowing down options, and identifying the ones that best compliment your skills, interests, and long-term objectives.
1. Prediction is the key
One of the agile methods of career evaluation is to keep tabs on emerging trends and predicting career outcomes for a particular course of action. However, a common mistake at this stage is to rely too much on surface-level statistics, such as the average salary for your desired role, without considering that the actual on-ground reality might be different.
This is why it is essential to ask more nuanced questions. For example, if you were to pursue a machine learning course, how likely are you to get a job after it? What remuneration can you expect in this role, and what would be the responsibilities here? What are the other soft/technical skills that you will need to function, and what kind of growth paths will be open to you after this role? How does it compare to real-time market data?
Finding the answers to these questions can help you to break down the challenge of choice into more manageable datasets such as risk aversion and subjective probability. You can, therefore, categorize job opportunities based on their risk/reward ratio and check them for optimism bias – the failure to account for potentially unfavorable outcomes – to make better career decisions.
2. A/B Testing of the choices
Another way to analyze your career decisions is to list of all possible options open to you, along with your interests, skills, and future goals. Following the concept of PCAA (Plan, Contrast, Assess Risks, and Act) helps you to align your interests with your long-term career objectives by weighing and classifying each option on the basis of possible risks, skills requirement, market trends, growth opportunity, etc. This approach can help you make more informed decisions.
3. Get Social
Social networking is an integral part of career enhancement. Connecting with the right people can not only help you stay more informed about industry trends and evaluate possible career paths but also unlock opportunities beyond your current vision by exposing you to a broader professional network. These connections can also help you to source references, which can play a make-or-break role in securing your dream job.
4. Build a Portfolio
One of the better ways to build such networks is to create a portfolio of work, whether it is by creating blogs, publishing idea boards, or listing down key lessons and best practices in your domain. Using social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn can also amplify the reach of your portfolio with your peers, thus enabling consistent, value-driven engagement with a dedicated target audience.
5. Upskill to Upgrade
It is no secret that upskilling comes with a proven advantage that accelerates your career trajectory and opens lucrative new career paths for you. This is why, once you have mapped out the possible career options for you, it is advisable to identify the skills you will need to qualify for those roles as well as to perform optimally. This analysis can help you zero in on the most relevant upskilling courses, based on your short-term and long-term priorities.
AI-based solutions such as Epitome Career Builder can help you achieve this by mapping and evaluating different career paths, in line with real-time market trends, and providing personalized recommendations for a guided upskilling journey. This evaluation, backed by robust analytics and tech capabilities, can help you to identify the most relevant career path, as well as the actions you need to take to progress along it.
Changing careers can be a difficult and scary decision but, with guided upskilling and a well-defined career path, you can eliminate the uncertainty associated with it. Just remember that, when it comes to careers, there is no one size fits all; what works well for someone else might not drive the same results for you. However, by adopting these strategies, you can find the right strategy to supercharge your career and take it to newer heights.
Why not check out how Epitome Career Builder can help you make right career decision?