Choosing the Right Career: And how to make a smooth career change!

Choosing a career or changing from one career to another can be a daunting task. However, with some well thought out career planning you can start in the right job field or make the transition into another career field with a minimum of fuss.

Why do so many end up choosing a career that is less than satisfying and some find themselves in careers where they are downright miserable? The short answer is many think they know the correct way about picking a career, yet there are a number of myths associated with choosing a career that you need to know about.

The number one myth about choosing a career is that the process is simple, takes little time and

once the career choice is make the book is closed. Actually, selecting the right career for you should be an ongoing process that involves career and employer research, learning about yourself and effectively using all the available career and job hunting resources available to you.

Career Planning for Great Future Results

Once you recognize career planning and selection is an involved process you need to spend the appropriate amount of time to get the best results.

Career ideas can come from many sources. Don’t let a career counselor or a friend tell you what career is best for you. They can give you a level of guidance on new career ideas but it’s never wise to rely entirely on their advice.

For example, many times you’ll get advice from professionals and friends that you can’t make a living from your hobby. In reality, this is the one area to start looking how you can take your skills learned from the hobby to a profitable career. Either, self-employed or working in the field for another employer can be an excellent career choice.

In addition, a part-time hobby that can be turned into a small money making business, while working full-time, can provide you with an additional level of financial security.

Learn about a Career without working in it

Many think the only way you can really learn about a career is to work in it. Not true. If you find a career that interests you, do the research to find others working in the field. Contact them to see if you can arrange a short interview. Or have questions ready for a short phone interview. Many times these discussions will lead to other valuable resources regarding the career. All will assist you in making the right career decision.

Another area where many go wrong is to only look at careers on the latest “hot careers” list. These are top ten lists of the hottest current and projected future jobs. Although interesting and a possible source for further research you need to focus on your skills, what are your top interests and what excites you about a particular career and not what someone predicts will be the outlook for a specific occupation.

Career Change is in your Future

In the course of a lifetime, if you are typical, you will change jobs and careers several times. The secret of making a successful career change is to spend time every week and month is career planning. A well though out plan researching jobs and employers will keep you attuned to changes in the economy, new careers in which you may qualify and other income opportunities.

Developing career related skills through training and self-study will make you more valuable in your current career and prepare you to open future doors of yet undiscovered career ideas.

After a decade of riding the ups and downs of pharmaceutical industry, having choosing a sales rep job, recently I came across a very intriguing question: Will a pharmaceutical sales representative be a job to try to get into or will it become extinct? Clearly, this question got mixed up and I will use my own personal experience to explain why.

The Thin Line Between a Career and a Job

Remember the all time favorite quotes, “Give someone a fish and you feed for a day. Teach someone to fish and you feed for a lifetime.” And that exactly separates a career from a job. Right now, I work for a pharmaceutical company promoting their brand of Diagnostics equipment. That is my job. But if I got people working for me selling my brand of equipments – that is a career.

My point here is simply this: A job is a stepping stone to a career. A job prepares you to move ahead to your career; which bring us to the next point.

Is Pharmaceutical Sales Representative a Dream Job?

I got a friend (let us call him Adam for example sake) and he used to work for a Pharmaceutical company selling Orthopedics implant. One day, a mutual friend asked him, “Adam, how long will you work like this, carry that big bag around, and begging for sales?” Even though Adam was making close to USD 30,000.00 in incentive alone at that point of time, he was dumbfounded. He did not seem to have the right answer.

But today, I am happy to report that Adam is the Regional Sales Manager for a local generics company, promoting Antihypertensive product range throughout the country. He got people reporting to him, and his main task is to penetrate, develop and maintain account, especially Government Hospital sectors.

He could not have such a flying color pharmaceutical sales career without the sweat and blood as a sales representative beforehand. He still carry bag but with different content, style and purpose. He got himself a career – for now. Knowing him, I know this is just another job before he moves forward.

So, if I was asked the question whether a pharmaceutical sales representative is a dream job or another dead end job, my answer is simply depending on what you want to make out of it. You can stick in that job; carrying detailing bags and begging for sales all your working life or you can decide to move ahead and make a career out of it. It is totally up to you.

Often the terms “job”, “occupation”, and “career” are used interchangeably. However, in actual fact, these terms have quite different meanings so it is important to distinguish between these terms.

A “job”is work for which you receive pay. It is therefore a means to live and may or may not be long-term or lead to anything else by way of work. For this reason a job can be seen as one large task or a series of tasks that is typically performed in return for money. Contract work and project work often contain “jobs” that have to be done, usually on a fixed-term basis (even if they are repeated over many months and even years). Individuals tend to talk about their work as “just a job” when it doesn’t give them much long-term career satisfaction.

An “occupation” is a wide category of jobs with similar characteristics. In other words, an occupation is a broad title for what someone does on a continual basis. This means that all of their work tends to fit into a professional category that most people recognize. There are many examples in this category but some might be an accountant, doctor, engineer, nurse, plumber, police officer, scientist or teacher. As you can see, most occupations are fairly well-understood in concept, if not specific terms, and there is therefore lots of good information to be gathered on them (online, for example) as a future career option. Job satisfaction is often greater in an occupational role, but in modern times, it is far less likely than it used to be that people stay in only one occupation. Today, many of us will change occupations several times in our lives.

Finally, a “career” is a lifetime journey of building and making good use of your skills, knowledge and experiences (wherever these are invested). Put another way, a career is a period of long-term employment usually in a given area or industry. An individual will therefore typically spend many years in an area or industry and perform what may be several different roles. A career is consequently similar to an occupation but is often much broader, as it may involve several linked occupational jobs in the same or similar fields. For example, a doctor might start as a resident at a hospital, become a surgeon, act as a specialist, become a medical director and finally become a hospital administrator. These are four very directly linked occupations but can be considered a career in the medical field.

Of course, in a more general sense, there is nothing stopping individuals from pursuing quite a varied career in which he or she starts as an accountant for instance, works his or her way up to a Chief Financial Officer, later becoming a Chief Executive. S/he may even end his or her career on the board of an entirely different company in an unfamiliar field — still very much a career!

So in summary, a job is work for which you receive pay, an occupation is a range of jobs with similar characteristics and finally a career is a lifetime of making good use of your skills, knowledge and experiences.

Why does it matter?

If you simply want a job, you may be happy to collect your money as a return for the hours you put in and not worry that much about where it may lead you in the future. Both younger and older employees often feel that this is entirely acceptable, as they either want to gain some experience for their résumé or have to earn money to fund their out-of-work activities or interests. However, as soon as you start to think about other issues such as greater job interest, growth, learning and development, and collaboration opportunities, you are starting to think in more occupational terms (a field of activity in which you might flourish) and career terms (where one job may well lead to another that you may enjoy even more). For this reason, we will be examining how to look at occupations and careers that provide the greatest potential for enjoyment for individuals. And in order to do this we first have to know quite a lot about ourselves.