Beyond Matric Results: Crafting a Fulfilling Career Path

Matric results are soon to be released, and as the youth hold their breath in anticipation of their grades, parents and caregivers stand by, equally stressed. Students are waiting for the results that encapsulate 12 years of studying, hard work, and memorable experiences. These years of effort materialize into a number, a grade, a score that compares you with your fellow students. This affects your future, your enrollment in university, and the profession you choose. However, it doesn’t have to dictate your entire career path.

Matric results are not the ultimate determinant of your future career. In fact, they are one of the building blocks that will form the path to your career, constructed brick by brick as you continue learning and experiencing growth. But where do you start?

Establish What Success Means to You

If you view your work as simply a source of income, then it will feel like a chore. But if it’s a source of inspiration, it will motivate you and enrich your life. We spend about a third of our lives (90,000 hours!) working. How do we make this significant portion of our life count?

The 3 Cs to Career Guidance

These can serve as a roadmap to building a fulfilling career path:

Get Clarity: Become clear on your proficiency – explore your strengths, personality traits, knowledge base, passions, and what holds significance in your life (your purpose). In addition to getting to know yourself, gain clarity on the job market. Understand the market’s needs and how your interests in a specific job align with current and future job market trends. An interesting resource to explore various professions within an industry, the salary range, and market trends is the US Occupation handbook. [Link]

Get Certified: Once you know the job you want to pursue, identify the knowledge required. It may not necessitate a university degree. A short course might be sufficient. Using your gap year to ‘test’ your interests, such as by enrolling in free courses offered by platforms like LinkedIn, can be beneficial. [Link]

Get Connected: Getting clarity about yourself will be very helpful when coupled with feedback from people who know you. This extra perspective on your strengths will be invaluable in your pursuit of the right career. Once you have an idea of your path, find mentors or role models in the industry. Ask questions and gain in-depth insight. Develop real relationships with people who can both offer help and benefit from your assistance.

Embracing Change and Standing Out

Change is happening fast. The rapid pace of technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and automation make the future work landscape appear uncertain. It is more important than ever to stand out, not only from other people but also from the machines that are competing with you. The more you understand about yourself, the more you learn and build a strong foundation for lifelong learning, the stronger your chances are for a successful career.

ORT SA Career Hub

ORT SA’s Career Hub aims to empower individuals by educating them about potential career opportunities, helping them identify their strengths, and providing them with the necessary skills to kickstart their careers.  The Career Hub provides opportunities to enhance your skill set, positioning yourself ahead of the competition and propelling your career to new heights. Find out more [Link]

Image created by DALL-E

Sample through to career selection

You found your purpose (Link to post) and have made the decision on the career path to take. What’s next?

It may be wise to ‘sample’ or ‘experiment’ the profession you have chosen to embark on. This may save you time, money and unnecessary discomfort, especially if it takes you through the academic route.

Here are three ways to explore and experience the career you have chosen to take.

1. Take an internship or volunteer as an apprentice in a profession of your choice. Use the time to ask, explore, inquire and experience your selection.
2. Take a MOOC (Massive, Online, Open Courses). Register for one of the MOOC platforms with one or two courses in the field chosen, and start learning. This will give you an in-depth insight into the subject matter and motivation to pursue it further. (Should it convince you away from your selected path, you have saved time and money with registering with a full qualification. In addition, you acquired a skill or knowledge that may be useful in the future.)
   Check out the following MOOC platforms:
   https://www.coursera.org/
   https://www.udemy.com/
3. Join Social Media professional groups of your chosen profession and become a “fly on the wall” gaining insight through their experiences. In the process you may also extend your network and search for future mentors or even employers.

This sampling could be spent during your ‘gap year’ period and make this time a meaningful part of your career selection journey.

Image source: Edsurge

Trust your intuition when choosing a career path

By now, you have adopted a growth mindset (Link Post), know the importance of acquiring broad skills rather than a single skill (Link post) and you may ask yourself what now? I am still confused…

Many books have been written on the power of purpose, (Amazon lists more than 150K of them), the desire to make a difference and live a purposeful life. So why don’t we start the search for our career path combined with our search for purpose?

It is time for deep reflection and working within. The following questions can be asked to help you find your purpose (the WHY for your existence).

1. You are 10 years old. What did you spend most of your time doing? What did you love doing?
2. If you were a character in a Marvel movie. How would you save the world? What will you save the world from?
3. What do people come to you for advice for?
4. In what areas do you feel comfortable to take risks in?
5. What makes you cry? What makes you happy?

Finding the purpose is mostly about how we contribute to the better of other people.

If you find this exercise difficult and not ready for this in-depth questioning. Start with a simple question… What is that you see yourself doing for the rest of your life that will make you jump out of bed every single morning?

We tend to ask what jobs will bring us a good and secured income but forget to trust our intuition regarding our existence in this world.

Equip yourself to the future job market

If you knew that you could do whatever your mind is set to do, what would you be doing?

Include this question when pursuing your career choice. Reflect on it and use it in discussions with family and friends. Choose people who will listen to you in a non-judgmental way and with constructive feedback. (Check this post about the importance of mindset). 

When we finish school and are faced with a career decision, we are also under pressure to choose a certain path, from parents or our social circle. Usually, the advice is towards the familiar and conventional job career choices; becoming a lawyer, doctor, accountant…all to secure your future and financial stability.

The question is what future are we securing? Numerous articles and research discuss the unknown with the jobs of the future due to the magnitude of changes brought by technology. Automation and artificial intelligence is said to already replace 50% of the jobs force in the USA. So what will be the jobs of the future and what skills will we need to ensure we are equipped?

In the past, mastering one skill used to be the norm. Be good in one thing, master it and you will become successful. Unfortunately, today, mastering one skill is not enough. In his book, Adam Scott, ‘How to fail at almost everything but still win big’ the author claims that it’s better to develop a variety of abilities and sometimes fail than mastering a single skill. Having many skills, increases your market value and will help you adjust to the world’s constant changes as well as help you stand out from the competition.

How is this helping parents or the decision makers? It may help alleviate the pressure of acquiring one single skilled profession. It may change our perspective that failing in a specific job choice may just be a stepping stone towards another route. Acquiring a variety of skills, already from school is vital if we are to become ready for the jobs of the future. 

Start with your mindset when choosing career

In response to my first post in the series of career selections SEE LINK  , I received interesting feedback via comments , emails and discussions I had with people. It alerted me that people seem to put quite a lot of emphasis on the various assessments offered for career guidance but yet don’t seem to see it beneficial.

When I was 21 years old, after my army duty, my dad made it clear that I will have to study in a university. I had no idea what and where and was extremely muddled. It was decided that I will do an assessment with a professional guidance counselor. I remember the long and excruciating assessment. I had to fill in a long questionnaire followed by a cumbersome interview. After long hours in his office, I left with one message: “I can do anything I put my mind to”… I was still confused about the path to take.

Carol Dweck, a professor from Stanford University and the author of “Mindset” has dedicated years of research onto people’s belief in their abilities and talents and how it affects which paths they choose to take in life. She demonstrates that what matters most is our mindset. There are two types of mindsets: people with the fixed mindset where they believe that we were born with our abilities and talent and there is nothing that can be done to change it and people with growth mindset who believe in their ability to grow and learn from mistakes rather than seeing those mistakes as failures.

How are this types of mindsets linked to selecting your career path? I believe there is a strong connection between what you believe you can do to the path you choose. Adopting a growth mindset would help you with choosing a path that may be more difficult to pursue but at the end, more fulfilling. Having a mindset that failures are perceived as opportunities will ease your choice process towards your own development.

I wish I understood this when I did my own assessment. I would have understood the advice given to me better. Anyone at any time can adopt the growth mindset. We should start embedding this mindset into our schools from an early stage.

Image source: unknown

Choosing what to do after school

Source: abssvss

You’re 18 years old, finished school and most probably, experiencing the ‘end of childhood’ as you knew it. You are faced with a life time decision, or so you feel, about your career path.

Many have been in a similar situation..’the road not taken’…’jobs of the future’… ‘choose wisely’…. So much pressure for relatively young souls that have being part of the schooling system for more than a decade. A system where almost everything is dictated, including the dress code, the time to wake up and the curriculum.

Now, you have to choose the path to take. What to learn, where and when. You have to dictate your own path. Seeking guidance through assessments, professionals, teachers or parents can be useful but doesn’t always bear the answers you are looking for.

The following four principles can help you through this period;

1. Take the risk. The biggest fear is selecting a path for which you are not sure of. It’s Ok if you decide to change your route! See each experience as an opportunity to learn and grow.
2. Embrace lifelong learning. No matter what you have chosen, continue learning. In today’s changing environment it is no longer the case that we learn for a profession it is learning while you are in the job.
3. Travel, get out of your comfort zone. Traveling experiences can provide ample learning and strengthen your character.
4. Gap Year; If you’re not sure what to do after school, take a gap year, but enrich this year with studies, reading and travel experiences. The decision will come sooner or later. Even if later, you’d have a wider foundation to stand on to ensure you are equipped to deal with changes and new unexpected career pathways.

Source: Crunchy Friday

* This post is first in a series of articles to tackle issue of career guidance. Please comment and share your thoughts and own experiences