Making decisions about your early career with any sense of purpose might seem like an impossible task.
Have you heard things like; be practical, do what you enjoy, follow the money, you need to be x, y or z. You can end up feeling pigeonholed before you have even had a chance to figure things out for yourself and it can be stressful. “It’s the rest of your life we are talking about here” is a phrase I despised and is a misconception. Perhaps in the past you could say that, but people in the modern era change careers all the time. But why?
Exactly the reason you have landed here. Your sense of purpose is a living breathing ever-evolving part of you. So, what do you do? Well, here is our guide to identifying purpose and using it to give you direction.
1. What do you really enjoy doing?
This could be working with animals, working on games, or whatever it may be. Find out what you would like to do if money was no object. If you could be paid whatever you wanted for work, what would you choose? Once you have a couple of ideas, research careers for those options and find the closest thing possible to that, or if that’s not quite doable, find the nearest steppingstone that will lead to that career. This is a vital step as when you love what you do, your sense of purpose will be strong. If you really don’t know what you enjoy then read our discovery article on attraction, attachment, and aspiration for further advice.
2. You have found a career, now what?
Review your qualifications, and write down your experience and skills. If you have worked somewhere break down your job and see what you have done. Don’t have any experience? What else have you got? What you are really doing in this step is compiling information for your CV whilst broadening your perspective about your skills.
4. Search around for that job opening
You have now taken all the necessary steps to be on the right path towards finding your purpose, the last step is to start looking for a career that matches what you enjoy. Search on multiple sites, and social media, you can even find a company on LinkedIn and send a message to the recruitment team. We recommend downloading our app so you never miss an opportunity.
Having a sense of purpose can give you direction but it does not come easy and can take some digging. Stick with it, follow the steps and trust your gut, you will succeed.
Article written by:
Aaron
–
Early Careers Manager
Early Careers Ltd
