Trying to decide what career you should go into, or trying to determine if you should switch your career field can be extremely daunting, and you might not know where to start.

A job seekers first step should be to start brainstorming and compile a list of jobs, careers, and topic areas that you have interest in or have wanted to explore. You shouldn’t limit jobs or areas you don’t think you are qualified; just write down a list of anything (even being an astronaut) that you are interested in and then you can narrow it down. One of the quickest ways to determine if you are interested in a certain field or occupation is networking and finding individuals who work in the field or career you’re interested in. You should ask them questions about their occupation, what they like or dislike about it, what your concerns are and see if you are able to job shadow them so you are able to get real “live” experience in the career of your choice. By speaking to someone in the field, you get direct information, and after this point are able to list the pros and cons of the job, the skills and experience needed to be successful, and determine if the career still matches your interest, needs and wants.

Another option and something that has become more popular is to take a career quiz. You can visit online career information websites to get access to tests (most often at a cost) or you can review free websites that are dedicated to providing career and aptitude tests. If you focus on specific individual talents and subjects that you excelled in at school or work you may not discover your whole career possibilities. Career aptitude tests often use personality factors to see how you work with others or how comfortable you feel working under supervision, and these factors can be invaluable in finding the right career.

These online tools won’t be able to tell you what your perfect career will be, but it can help narrow what you are good at, what you enjoy doing, what is important items you want in your career and the types of jobs you will be positive in. The RIASEC/Holland interest scale identifies six common areas that people feel drawn to such as investigative, social or artistic fields, and based on your answers in those fields allows you to see sample careers. These career tests help narrow down what type of occupations you are interested in based on your interests and will lead to you be more passionate in your career.

Another helpful behavioural/characteristic profiling tool is called DISC. Through DISC you are able to identify your strength and limitation, your suitability in either Management, Sales , Service or Technical type of work as well as being matched to top 10 suitable jobs. DISC profiling is used wildly in Australia by HR Professionals and Recruitment Agencies Cairns

Once you have a general idea of your ideal career occupation or path, take time to figure out what skills you have and what skills you need. Remember, you’re not completely starting from scratch—you already have some skills to start, transferable skills which can be applied to almost any field. Examples of transferable skills include management and leadership experience, communication, research and planning, public speaking, computer skills, foreign language fluency, etc.

To get Career Help you may choose assistance from a Career Professional. Career coaching program are beneficial in number of ways some of these being:

• Identifying career path
• CV preparation
• Job applications
• Interview Preparation

The tools available in the market place are plentiful so choose wisely especially when taking Career Coaching Program or using a Career Professional. You should always do your research, choose who has proven track record and you feel most comfortable with.