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Tag: career choices

Benefits of Internships
For most young people trying to enter the work force the most common reason they give for not getting hired is “lack of experience.” Lots of students feel caught in the cycle of, “how can I gain experience if I can’t get a job.” One of the best ways to overcome this obstacle is to get an internship.

An internship is work experience designed to allow students to explore jobs relating to their university majors or to a specific career goal. There are a number of benefits to completing an internship. According to monster.com “employers overwhelmingly point to internship experience as the most important factor they consider in hiring new college graduates for full time positions.”

Aside from the possibility of being more employable to a perspective employer, here are some other benefits of internships:
1. Completing an internship in high school may help you choose (or rule out) a university major. Maybe you wanted to be a Veterinarian your whole life, but after completing an internship in a vet’s office you discovered it really isn’t for you. The on the job training will help give you the opportunity to see what it’s really like in a certain field, and allow you to test out if the job is everything you expected it to be.
2. Some internships may allow you to earn course credits. You might also be paid during your internship (though in some cases you will be expected to work for experience not for money).
3. You can gain first hand job experience and knowledge that can’t be taught in the classroom. On the job training may make you more marketable to perspective employers. Internships also look really great on your resume.
4. Internships can help you improve your confidence and self-esteem. Working in a professional environment and doing a good job will definitely help boost your confidence. It feels good to work hard and feel like you’ve contributed in some way.
5. It will provide you with the opportunity to network. You can make contacts you can use in the future, which may lead to a future job opportunity or a valuable reference.
6. You might work with someone who can become a mentor to you while your pursue career goals. Mentors can be helpful to ask questions to, get advice from and to learn from someone who works in a field that interests you.
Although education is extremely important, on the job, real world experience provides invaluable opportunities that can’t be duplicated in a classroom, which is why the benefits of an internship are well worth all the hard work you’ll have to put in.
April 20, 2016
How Do I Know I’m on the Right Career Path?

When children are young, they often dream of becoming a ballet dancer, search and rescue pilot, or explorer. Later on, however, most of them begin to think of different careers like teacher or doctor.

Picking a good career is hard; how do you know you’re going to make the right choice?

In the past, people tended to choose one career, train for it, and then stay in that career for the rest of their lives. These days, however, permanent jobs are hard to find, and people tend to switch jobs or career paths quite often. Young people starting out in their careers might have twelve to fifteen different jobs in their working life, not including summer work. Although, some of these job changes are within the same career path- people have to be much more flexible than they were in the past.

This need for flexibility is important to remember as you decide on what career path to pursue. You might start out as a lawyer but then go back to school to study librarianship, or you might use your training as an engineer to get work in theatre set construction. The important thing is to find careers that fit your skills and your personality.

Knowing yourself can be the key to finding the right career path. Do you love to talk and work with people? You might want to choose a career that allows you to do that, such as becoming a teacher or a social worker. Are you very precise and love to work with your hands? You might want to consider careers such as lab worker, inventor, or mechanic.

Your skills and abilities can also help you choose the right path. If you dislike studying and memorizing facts, for example, you should avoid careers in medicine. If you have troubles handling stressful situations, you should probably not try to get into the police or security work. You might be able to overcome these barriers, but you should consider other options before you try these difficult jobs.

Besides all of your personal characteristics, you need to know something about the working world to choose a good career. The available opportunities change rapidly, and a job that seems promising now might disappear entirely within a few years. However, knowing the job market can help you prepare for these changes.

If you can fill a need, you are likely able to stay in your chosen career path for a long time. No one can predict exactly what will happen in the next few years, but it is a good idea to be as prepared as possible. Consider your options; try things you haven’t considered before. Using trial and error will help you figure things out, and lead you to where you’re supposed to be.

Bibliography:

Harris, Peter. “How Many Jobs Do Canadians Hold in a Lifetime?” http://careers.workopolis.com/advice/how-many-jobs-do-canadians-hold-in-a-lifetime/.

HelpGuide.org. “Finding the Right Career.” http://www.helpguide.org/articles/work-career/finding-the-right-career.htm
Wikihow.com. “How to Choose the Right Career.” http://www.wikihow.com/Choose-the-Right-Career.

Work BC.ca. “Self-Assessment.” https://www.workbc.ca/Job-Seekers/Build-Your-Career/Planning-Your-Career/Starting-and-Planning-Your-Career/Self-assessment.aspx.

Zimmerman, Eilene. “Helping Teenagers Find Their Dreams.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/jobs/25career.html?_r=0.

December 24, 2015
Go with the Flow!

I have to admit something. I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. And I turn 40 in a few weeks. And that’s OK!

My career and education path has been full of changes. Graduating from High School, I was going to be an Economics major. I thought it would give me the best chance of a stable job when I graduated. Turns out, I hate economics! But I loved my Geography and Anthropology courses. Luckily, that’s what first year is about, finding subjects that peak your interest. So I changed my major to dual Geography-Anthropology only to then lose my part time job and move home with my parents. The university in their city didn’t have an anthropology department so my major became Geography. However, once I graduated with my BA, I realized I would have to get higher education to carry on in that field, but I didn’t love it enough to work towards a Master’s degree. So I decided to work for a little bit. While working as a waitress, I decided to get a certificate from the local college in Business Administration. I liked the Human Resources part; people made sense to me. But I stayed a waitress because the money was good and I had a pile of student debt. A few years later, I met and married my husband, who with his military career, took me around the world, and gave me two children. During the next fifteen years I earned two more college certificates, one in being a teacher of adult learners, and one for graphic design. Both I took online in my spare time. Now I work part time in a retail store and I own my own business doing graphic design, photography and freelance writing. How’s that for going with the flow? If you would have told me in High School that I would one day be getting paid to be creative, I would have laughed at you.

The idea that a person knows exactly what they will do with their life at 17 or 18 is ridiculous. Even if you are 100% sure of the path, life sometimes takes twists and turns you weren’t expecting. Good and bad things will be thrown at you, and it’s your ability to deal with those events that determine how successful you will ultimately be.

The best part about being open and going with the flow, is that every experience you have, can be brought with you. I may not be “using” my degree, but the research and study skills from those years are a core part of every course I took afterwards. The customer service skills I learned as a waitress, I use in my freelance business. The software I learned in business, I use every day. Even the cultural awareness I gained while travelling is invaluable.

In short, be open to new possibilities. Learn from failure, say yes to new things, challenge yourself to try scary things. Sometimes the things we fear doing the most, are precisely the things we need to be doing.

And, remember, two steps forward and one step back isn’t failure….it’s dancing the tango!

September 22, 2015
Feeling Lost: How to Pick a Career

Sometimes in life we feel lost. We feel that we have lost our bearings and that we don’t know who we are or what we want. This is very common among high school and university students. Many high schoolers decide that they do not want to move on to college or university because they do not know what they want to take. This reflects a need for better guidance counselling in schools as well as more funding for vocational training from the government. Currently, a lot of the education students get about careers is passed down from relatives, friends and family. Often students will choose to pursue a career that someone they know does as a way of feeling like they know what they are getting into. This is the safe, but not always best, route.

Many people decide to wait a year or two before embarking on their next level of education. This can be a wise step, depending on where you are coming from. Another approach is to jump head first into something that you are unsure of, ensuring your can-do attitude is firmly in place. This can work out well, especially if you are going away to university, because it is easy to switch programs after the first year. Plus, this path is much more common than you might think.

The first step for anyone looking to gain a career orientation is to educate yourself on what jobs are in demand, according to the job market today and the forecasts for the next 5-10 years. You will also want to evaluate your skill set. JobsPeopleDo.com is a great resource for anyone looking to learn more about careers and what will be in demand in the coming decade. Researching your options will allow you to make an informed choice about the job you see yourself doing in the future. It is wise to also ask people who currently work in your profession of choice what their job is like and what kinds of duties are required. Do they enjoy it? Would they recommend it to you? Hearing firsthand accounts will really help you to put your choices into perspective. Good luck!

July 30, 2014
Don’t Be What Others Want You to Be – BE YOU!

What makes you different from others? Many people struggle to answer this question. It is the differences in each other that make us unique. We may have many things in common with each other, but there will always be one skill, one trait, one quality that sets us all apart.

College is a good example of this. In it, there are thousands of students of different ages and from various walks of life learning something they have taken an interest in. When you are choosing programs, you are faced with a long list of career options and you may skim through a few without taking interest, knowing that this particular program is not for you. However, it may be exactly what someone else wants and it’s because of this that we are able to have a functioning society. There are so many jobs and for each job there is someone who this job is for. We have doctors and dentists, teachers and chefs, engineers and business owners, garbage collectors and police officers and we all need each other but could not do each other’s jobs. I would not want my dentist making my food or Gordon Ramsey teaching my children. We are not all supposed to be great at the same things. Though society and its media encourage us to look alike and be alike, it actually needs us to be different and, more importantly, ourselves.

Too many people hide their true talents and skills, in fear that they will stand out too much as being “different”. They fear that they will end up unhappy, doing a job they don’t really like. We all seek acceptance in each other to the point that we lose ourselves and more or less put our true self away in a box, trying to mold ourselves to suit the desires of other people. Change or self-improvement is a good thing, IF you’re improving YOURSELF. Going to school, losing weight, building some muscle, changing your hair color, whitening your teeth – these are all fine things but they do not change the core of you. You are still you when you graduate; You are still you a few pounds lighter. These are only improvements on what you already are and it doesn’t change the true you inside.

It is so important to discover yourself and be yourself because society needs you just as you are. Realizing this will help you bloom and excel in things you are passionate about. It is easy to have things in common with people these days thanks, to media, trends and culture. It’s okay to have fun with those things, but don’t lose yourself in it and don’t let it consume you. For everyone’s sake, do not be something you are not.

The world doesn’t need another one of THEM. It needs just one of YOU.

October 18, 2012
Love What You Do – Follow Your Natural Instincts!

If you’re unsure of where you want to end up career-wise, try sitting down with a pen and paper to brainstorm. Write down all of the things that make you happy and all of the things that you’re passionate about. Think about what inspires you and write down what your hobbies and interests are. If writing doesn’t work for you, take out some magazines and cut out images or words that make you feel good or grab your attention. Doing this will help you to see what you like and what you’re naturally attracted to. By knowing what you like, it will make it easy for you to determine what you don’t like. Seems pretty straight forward, but you would be surprised by the amount of people that don’t take the time to figure out what interests them!

If you’re someone like this, you may end up going into a work placement knowing you don’t like it and you’ll end up switching jobs a week or a month down the road. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing because trying one job and not liking it may actually lead you to the one you really want to be doing. However, you want to avoid bouncing around from job to job because it doesn’t help you build up your credentials and ultimately takes time away from you growing at what you’d actually love to be doing.

There can be negativity surrounding the idea of pursuing what you love. Have you ever heard the expression, “love doesn’t pay the bills?” Some people don’t feel it’s possible to actually do what they love, or that if they did the money wouldn’t be worthwhile. In reality it can be quite the opposite. A mentor once told me, “If you love what you’re doing, the money will come. But you need to really love what you’re doing and you need to really believe in it.”

If you don’t believe you can make a living doing what you love, then you won’t. Attitude is important when it comes to pursuing a passion. Having the right attitude and the right support group can make doing what you love a lot easier. There are many people that earn an income from their passions, but understand that none of them got to where they were just by thinking about it or by staying at a job they hated. They put in a lot of time, blood, sweat and tears. They put themselves out there, learned what they needed, practiced their craft and took risks. Photographers, writers, graphic artists, designers – the list goes on! Find these people that are doing what they love and surround yourself with them. It will help to inspire you to do what YOU love.

Choosing a career based around things that you enjoy will not only motivate you to continue with it, but will also give you a reason to wake up in the morning. You’ll have something to be excited about and to look forward to. There is nothing worse than waking up dreading your work day and being unhappy and resentful because you aren’t enjoying what you’re doing. In order to love what you do, you need to know what you love first. So write it down, cut out magazine images, try different things and talk to the people who are doing what you want to be doing. The best part about finding a career that makes you love what you do is the fact that you’ll feel like you’ve never worked a day in your life.

September 2, 2012
I Want to be a Robot: Discovering Career Choices at an Early Age

Miss Inglis’ kindergarten class at Parliament Oak elementary school had to answer a special question this week. The question: what do you want to be when you grow up?

The study of childhood occupation aspirations has been going on for decades and approached from many different angles. From the psychological transition of fantasy to realistic choices, to gendered influences on the traditional roles children choose.

In a 1952 Ginzberg study, it was noted that children go through three stages in choosing occupations: “fantasy choices (before age 11); tentative choices (ages 11 to 17); and realistic choices (ages 17 to young adulthood).”

Parliament Oak kindergartener Jack wants to be a robot. Maddie wants to be a rock star and James wants to be a spy.

These children’s choices are fantastical. But as the workforce in Canada shifts towards the service industry and technological occupations, even a mail carrier may soon be considered a fantasy career choice.

However, some career choices will stand the test of time. For example, kindergartener Ciaran wants to be an animal scientist, and Alexander wants to be a doctor. Career choices in science are likely to continue to be in high demand despite rapid changes in technology.

Gender influences noted by scientists Levy, Sadovsky, Troseth, and Stroeher determined that early in life, especially from ages four to seven, young boys and girls are likely to choose traditionally male or female careers.

This was a very common theme in Mrs. Inglis’ class; Oskar wanted to be a soccer player, Brian a policeman, Sophie a hair stylist, and Katherine a bride. However, social psychologists Garrett and Tremaine reported, “as children get older, they tend to be more flexible in choosing non-stereotyped careers”.

An interesting aspect of these studies done in the 1970s is that boys reported to have double the amount of fantastical career choices than young girls. Garrett and Tremaine’s research noted, “girls learn early on that few adult vocations are open to them.”

Today, we are living in the crossover effect of male/female college enrolment rates. According to the Population Reference Bureau organization, it officially occurred in 1993 and now leaves males seven percentage points behind females when it comes to college populations. This change improves the likelihood of female success in the workplace and increases their vocational opportunities.

Mrs. Inglis’ class did not reflect that change, with boys and girls averaging at very similar amounts of choices. The students are set to graduate this week, and it will be neat to see what they will become, and who will find success in the workforce of the future. My money is on the robot kid, but only time will tell.

January 31, 2012