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by: GeorgePurdy
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Opportunities come to all of us, whether we recognize them or not. More often, it is "not"; we don't see them, or if we do, we don't take advantage of them. When starting a career, the same is true; there are many opportunities -- but they must be seized. In this brief, I hope to demonstrate to our younger audience that it is greatly to their advantage to start career planning early, and to take the right approach to career planning.

Everyone has personal preferences that a person's career choice can often clearly reflect. While one youngster may dream of becoming a rock star, another may prefer to dream of being an astronaut. Despite the value of considering endless possibilities, it's necessary to work hard in order to achieve these dreams. The careers imagined by most people in their youth often never come to be because of an absence of career planning.

A person should start early by asking adults around them about their jobs and career choices. Question everyone, family, friends, coworkers, parents, and teachers about their jobs. Ask their opinion on different jobs that you know of and talk to them if they can help you find more information about jobs. Experienced people can help immensely with their knowledge and would be helpful in choosing a career choice.

If when all is said and done you still don't know what career you might like to pursue, it's time to seek professional career counseling. For high school students, this help is as close as their school guidance office, and it's free. These professional counselors have been trained to determine your career needs, analyze your skills, and provide you with testing to evaluate your aptitude for various careers.

Local libraries and bookstores are a great place to find career planning guidebooks. A guidebook will contain information for making a career choice, such as profiles of conventional and unconventional jobs and what skills and characteristics are required to succeed. A book will also contain experiences of people already working in those professions. If you relate to the description of a certain job, you might want to choose that job.

With that in mind it is also quite important to take an assessment of personality, skill set, aptitudes and priorities as well so that career planning can be as advantageous as possible. SWOT analysis is a good way of aiding you in this assessment. Don't forget that creativity and passion are boundless, so take that big leap, go for that big dream. Once you have a dream career the only thing you need is some reality to the foundation to bring about fulfillment.

Opportunities come to all of us, whether we recognize them or not. More often, it is "not"; we don't see them, or if we do, we don't take advantage of them. When starting a career, the same is true; there are many opportunities -- but they must be seized. In this brief, I hope to demonstrate to our younger audience that it is greatly to their advantage to start career planning early, and to take the right approach to career choice. Seek out career counseling for opinions regarding the several careers that you know of, and ask them for help to get information on other possible careers as well.

About the Author

George Purdy is an acknowledged expert on career planning. He wrote many articles on this subject and is a well-known speaker. Look for tips and tricks to boost your knowledge on career coaches.

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