At the career crossroads

By Hafsah Sarfraz 


Today’s world focuses on more variety than what was offered to the previous generations. Take coffee for example … there are so many types of coffee to choose according to your taste and preference. Ice cream, which was available in maximum 10 flavors a few years ago, comes in hundreds of different flavors and combinations now. New cell phone models keep popping into the market everyday while giving us a greater variety to choose from. From lawn prints to cars, laptops or anything you can think of the variety is just growing giving us an astounding amount of choices today.



It goes the same for career. Gone are the days when medical and engineering were the only two options and the rest of the community was getting a simple honors degree just for the sake of an education. Today, there are courses, which you could never think of. Scanning the paper the other day, I noticed an undergraduate course in gems and jewelry. Now that sounds exciting!
But the variety doesn’t end there as there’s still a long list ahead. From political science to anthropology, gender studies, media, photography, journalism, auctorial sciences, hotel management, geology, zoology … and the list never stops.
Fortunately a lot of these courses are being offered here in Pakistan, too, which gives us all a chance to study the subjects we always wanted to. Even though true liberal art education is still not very common in Pakistan, it is available at some places.
Degrees in social sciences are now being offered everywhere giving you the ease to study social science without even leaving your city.
However, choosing your career is always a problem with such a great variety on offer in education. And you never actually realise it until you have to fill up your college applications, a bad time to choose your career. You need to start planning way before that for planning ahead of time helps you sift through all the confusion and conflicting choices. This makes it easier for you to choose the career that you can excel in. But choosing can be a tough task with so much variety at hand. So how do you find the most suitable career for yourself? Here are some things you need to consider before career planning.


Know thyselfThe first step to choosing the best career for yourself is knowing yourself well. You might believe that you know yourself best but there is a chance that you just think you do. So before anything, make a list of what you like, your interests, habits, behavior and what kind of a person you generally are. It is very important to have a very good idea as to what your strengths and weaknesses are before embarking on a career. You can start short listing different careers once you have an idea of this.


Family preferencesNo matter how much you say you don’t care about others and it’s your life; the ultimate truth is that you have to care about your family and those connected to you. Therefore planning a career is not an individual’s decision. Or let’s put it this way, it is your decision but you will have to know your family’s concerns and preferences. If they aren’t allowing something you want to do, then try to convince them about your interests. Tell them about why you want to join that particular career and how it can be good for you.


Striking a balanceLife keeps changing and we go through different phases of life which bring along a unique set of priorities and responsibilities.
A young graduate maybe ready to work from nine to five but a mother with a young child cannot devote so much of her time to work.
Hence while you plan a career, keep in mind of the different phases that are yet to come in your life. I am not saying to stay away from strenuous careers like medicine but make sure that your job is flexible if you have heavy responsibilities. Also, for that you will have to be adaptive and flexible to the changes that come your way. I have seen women who have an MBA and work in the corporate sector but when their responsibilities increase they take up lighter jobs such as teaching business or accounting at a high school. This way they keep working, earning a good amount of money and are also fulfilling their responsibilities at home without any problem. So striking a balance is highly important.


Researching your career choiceBefore you hop into college for a degree in a particular field make sure you research well about it. Surf the Internet, go through the newspaper and get to know as much as you can about that career and the flexibilities it offers. Written material might not be so effective, so ask people you know who are in that field. Ask them about how their work is, how life has changed after they jumped in this specific career and whether they love the work they do because if you love your job you tend to spend a happy life and everything becomes easy. Try to learn from other people’s experiences and use this learning for your betterment.


Scope and interestThis is a major problem. People often choose careers because of scope and not interest. Now the problem with this is that they don’t like their careers and are just working because of the fat pay cheques they get. This is little motivation for a career, which you are supposed to pursue for a lifetime.
Think of it this way … what happens when you don’t need the money anymore and are done with all your needs? How will you work at that point in time? Furthermore, if today computer-related careers are in demand, chances are that so many people go into this field that some may become redundant. So never choose scope over your personal interests because if you follow your interests, you will end up doing a better job and will excel at it, too.


Monetary or mentally rewarding?
Different people work because of different motives. Most do it for money while some people do it for the mental satisfaction that comes with it. Others do it for passion and so on. So make sure you know your reason behind choosing a career.
If you just want to mint money, you can open up a general store and sell all kinds of consumer goods. If you want to show your creativity there are tons of fields for you including, interior/fashion designing, journalism, photography, film-making, etc. If you want to do something for society, join an NGO. But before you choose your career, you should know what you want from that career — money or satisfaction?


Your personality and the jobA boring person would never be perfect for a gossip magazine. Likewise, a jovial person wouldn’t seem that suitable in the role of a doctor at least not while he/she is at work. So make sure your personality matches with the type of career that you want to pursue.
Chances are if your personality matches with your career, you will end up doing a great job and will also love the tasks you are supposed carry out. If you love music and know a lot about it then join a radio station or join a band. If you have a passion for truth and justice then you should be a lawyer. So a career according to your personality and interests will work best for you.

First published in Dawn.
http://www.dawn.com/2010/12/12/at-the-career-crossroads.html