12-18-2012, 04:43 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-18-2012, 04:45 AM by Persistent_Study.)
One way which you could narrow things down is by taking the Myers Brigg Test to discover your personality type, and then lookup jobs best suited to that personality type. As someone with a keen interest in social psychology, i have found that unlike some other career assessment tools out there, that this one has been spot on in sizing up myself and others for a particular job. You could then further look into any jobs you are not familiar with by checking the government's occupational outlook handbook website for more info. (Home : Occupational Outlook Handbook : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) Looking at your options in terms of which jobs you think you'd like, and why can help give you some sort of perspective of what your values are in, and help you further narrow things down.
For example, with me I am a borderline between being an INTP (The Thinker) and INFP (The Idealist). Based on this, of the jobs recommended the two that were of greatest interest to me were Liberal arts professor, and psychologist. Using this info I came up with the idea of being a psychology professor because I enjoy figuring out how and why people work the way they do. And if I could be anything I wanted to be would likely choose this route. However, after looking at how hard it is to become a psychology professor, and the job market for psychology majors in general, it's got me reconsidering not because of a lack of interest in the subject matter, but because of market conditions as one of my goals is to pick a degree program that will lead to gainful employment upon completion. Fortunately for me, there are a number of jobs, or at least government jobs, that will accept a regionally accredited bachelors degree in anything. (Speaking of which another resource that may help you explore career options is usajobs.gov, which I like because not only does it show you degrees, and coursework required for various jobs, but also the promotion potential within them - something anyone with upward mobility should be aware of.)
So what you could do is pick something you think you would really enjoy, but have always have a backup plan should it not work out. Then should you have to resort to the backup plan keep in mind what you will do next by developing another backup plan should the previous not work out and explore your career options like that should all else fail. Hopefully, that won't be necessary, and you can focus on upward mobility within a career path, but if not, this would be the only other way I could see things playing out unless you settled for a career that you were not happy in.
For example, with me I am a borderline between being an INTP (The Thinker) and INFP (The Idealist). Based on this, of the jobs recommended the two that were of greatest interest to me were Liberal arts professor, and psychologist. Using this info I came up with the idea of being a psychology professor because I enjoy figuring out how and why people work the way they do. And if I could be anything I wanted to be would likely choose this route. However, after looking at how hard it is to become a psychology professor, and the job market for psychology majors in general, it's got me reconsidering not because of a lack of interest in the subject matter, but because of market conditions as one of my goals is to pick a degree program that will lead to gainful employment upon completion. Fortunately for me, there are a number of jobs, or at least government jobs, that will accept a regionally accredited bachelors degree in anything. (Speaking of which another resource that may help you explore career options is usajobs.gov, which I like because not only does it show you degrees, and coursework required for various jobs, but also the promotion potential within them - something anyone with upward mobility should be aware of.)
So what you could do is pick something you think you would really enjoy, but have always have a backup plan should it not work out. Then should you have to resort to the backup plan keep in mind what you will do next by developing another backup plan should the previous not work out and explore your career options like that should all else fail. Hopefully, that won't be necessary, and you can focus on upward mobility within a career path, but if not, this would be the only other way I could see things playing out unless you settled for a career that you were not happy in.
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