Making a Career Choice When You Have No Idea What You Want to Do

1. Making a Career Choice When You Have No Idea What You Want to Do. • There are hundreds of career options out there. How do you make a career choice when you don’t really know what you want to do? Does it seem like an insurmountable task? It’s not. Yes, you will have to put some time and energy into making your decision, but your effort will be well worth it in the end. Follow these steps to making a good career choice.

2. Before you can make a career choice you have to learn about yourself. Your values, interests and skills, in combination with certain personality traits, will make some careers especially suitable for you and some particularly inappropriate. You can use self-assessment tools, often called career tests, to gather this information and, subsequently, to generate a list of occupations that are deemed appropriate. Some people choose to have career counselors or other career development professionals administer these tests but many opt to use free career tests that are available on the Web.

3. Self-Assessments • The most common question is this one: “I don’t know what I want to do. Is there a test or something that can tell me what career is right for me?” The answer is no. You can’t take a test that will, as if by magic, tell you what to do with the rest of your life. You can however use a combination of self-assessment tools that will aid you in your decision. This article will demystify the self-assessment phase of the career planning process. First I will tell you what self-assessment is and then I will give you an overview of the various tools used to help you learn about yourself.

4. Self-assessment is the first step of the career planning process. During a self-assessment you gather information about yourself in order to make an informed career decision. A self-assessment should include a look at the following: values, interests, personality, and skills. • recruitment agencies