How To Find A Career that Matches Your Strengths

Finding a career that matches your strengths is not about what Job sounds interesting, it is about knowing what you consistently do, what you enjoy doing and what kind of work environment suits you. If it is only based on what you like it may be misleading. Let me tell you how to find a career that matches your strengths.

1. Understand what strength means

A strength is not about what you are good at it is more about where you function better, develop quickly or what you can use efficiently. Your strengths can be communication, analytical thinking, problem solving, organization, creativity, leadership, empathy, persuasion, attention to detail and technical abilities. You can also have a combination of these strengths and you can try to go into a field that enables you to use these strengths.

2. Pay attention to what  comes naturally to you

Think about instances where you have no need to struggle as much as other people. You may notice that you do things faster than others, people often come to you to get things done, you notice things faster than others or you are more comfortable doing something. This reveals that you have a strength that has not been identified yet. But remember not to assume that this is your strength just because it feels easy to do. Make sure what you can do can produce positive results.

3. Look past your accomplishments

Past experiences can be very useful. Think about times when you have completed a project, solved a problem that others where struggling with, helped someone with something, organized an activity, led a group, made something from scratch, research something extensively on your own accord, learned something difficult quickly, received positive feedback and persuaded people to support an idea.

4. Don’t confuse a school subject with a career

Being good at a topic doesn’t mean you should venture into a field that involves that topics. Someone can be good at mathematics and want to become a mathematician and somebody that is good at government may not want to venture into politics. Someone who enjoys mathematics can venture into economics, engineering and data analysis and someone who enjoys biology can decide to go into any field, the underlying activities matter.

5. Identify the problems you enjoy solving

The reason why careers exist is to solve problem so the trick is to find a career where you enjoy solving problems. You can enjoy solving peoples  problems, technical problems, information problems, business problems, creative problems and social problems.

6. Consider how you prefer to work

Your strengths also involve your work style components. Many careers can have the same strengths but completely different work experiences. So, knowing what work style you prefer is very important. A strength can be used in many career but you may not be comfortable doing every type of work because of the type of work experience. For example someone may like caring for people, their physical well-being and solving the problem but they may not function well in a hospital environment, so they may decide to go into a different Healthcare profession. Look for a career where you the environment and daily activities are more convenient and allow you to function better in.

7. Consider what you don’t want

Finding a career is not only about what you like, what you don’t like is also very important. If you don’t like repetitive work you may want to go into a field that involves a greater variety. If you don’t like interacting with strangers frequently then you should not go into a career that requires you to face customers to much. If you don’t like working under strict procedures then occupations that are too strict are not advisable. This doesn’t mean you should not peruse a career just because you do not like one or two tasks. This is only important when the task is a major part of the occupation.

8. Think about the skills you can develop

Don’t limit yourself to only where  you have tried to develop more strengths. You can find a career that is suitable for you but you may not have one or two essential skills but these can always be developed. This prevents you from abandoning a particular career just because you don’t have one or two skills or because you aren’t already qualified.

9. Do research on the occupation

Once you have identified everything you need go past the job title. The job can be attractive but the actual work may be very difficult. Do research on the responsibilities, qualifications, technical skills, working conditions, career progressions, common positions, potential certifications, the industry and the job requirements. The actual job description is more useful because it shows you what you are actually supposed to do.

10. Look for the intersection

The strongest career options usually appear where many factors overlap. Like your strengths, interest, values, preferred work environment, skills and employment opportunities. Thus is very useful when making a long term career decision.

The main idea

Choosing a career is not just about picking any job you like. It is about understanding what you do well, what interests you, values, preferred working environment, and skills you are willing to develop. These provides direction but do not limit your options. The goal is to find a career where your skills can be useful, your interest can develop and you can grow professionally .