How to choose the right career path for your skills
Tuesday, June 22, 2021
Think about who you are, what youu2019re good at and what you enjoy. / Net photo.

Sometimes one might not be sure about their career path. You can find a number of students joining secondary schools and majoring into courses that aren’t even in their career line of choice and this makes it even harder in future.

But it is never too late to go after what you are really good at or what you enjoy doing. 

Experts recommend that it’s important to figure out a range of careers that excite you and to always remember that there is more than one path to your dream career.

According to the Youth Employment UK website, when looking towards choosing a career, it’s vital to assess yourself.

Think about who you are, what you’re good at and what you enjoy. This will help you choose career ideas that match your skills and interests.

Also, make useful self-assessment activities. Take some online career personality tests to find out more about your personal qualities and strengths. Also known as career aptitude tests or self-assessment tests, they can help you make career choices based on your personal traits, or qualities.

The website also points to building a list of careers you want to learn more about. If you have assessed your strengths, skills and interests, you should have a list of careers to think about. 

It’s useful to have a long list, with at least 10 career choices because there is no such thing as just one dream career. Lots of careers could be a great match for you.

Jean de Dieu Tuyishime, a student relations officer at BAG Innovation, says people need to make use of career guidance at an early age.

Students for example should have help from both their parents and teachers in terms of discovering their right career path.

"Career guidance should be an ecosystem that a child grows within. From early stages, kids should be put in a position that educates them about the existence of different career pathways and what it takes to pursue them,” he says.

He believes career guidance shouldn’t be left to teachers or career guidance counsellors but the entire community. For instance, parents should give their children space to grow and explore their talents to understand their interests so that they can identify their field of interest at an early age.

"Parents need to have a big role to play in their children’s career guidance since they spend a long time with them; they have a better understanding of them and this makes it easy for higher learning institutions to guide them  through the process.”