Your Career Goals

You should always be thinking about how to advance your career. Even if you’re unhappy with your current job, you can still appreciate the skills you’re picking up and how they’re preparing you for the next step in your career. Embrace the experience you’re receiving and the contacts you’re making as you set goals to reach the next level. With hard work and initiative, you can become an indispensable asset, ripe for either a promotion or a better position at a new company.

Most of us, no matter how old we are, still want the approving nods from our parents as we navigate our careers. After all, they know us better than anyone, want what’s best for us and are armed with wise perspectives that come from a lifetime of experiences.

For a decade or two, every piece of advice on careers seemed to be about the business world—Wall Street or the tech boom—and most of these jobs required pricey college degrees. But sometimes those business careers are less stable, and those degrees aren’t necessary to make a solid living.

There is not one definition for life-balance. It seems to be different for everyone. However, if you can achieve contentment in your personal life, that happiness is likely to spill over into your life at work. You can imagine—or perhaps you know from experience—that people with tumultuous or melancholic lives outside of work are likely to be distracted or sullen at work.

Introverted people are generally perceived as shy, quiet, aloof, withdrawn and timid. These are tough impressions to break when you’re trying to get noticed in a job, especially when you’re surrounded by louder, more extroverted colleagues. And if your boss is an extrovert, such a mismatch of energy might result in miscommunications that could make your work life miserable or even hurt your career.

There are many reasons to consider a job in the medical field. First, there are so many different options; from doctor to nurse to physician assistant to home health aide to administrative assistant. If you’re a people person, you can pursue a role where you’re caring for patients and interacting with all types of people in all types of situations. If you’re not a people person, you might seek out research in a lab or behind a desk.

Switching careers can seem risky and daunting. Other times you don’t have a choice –you’re laid off or you’ve taken too many pay cuts. The average American worker changes jobs five to seven times in a lifetime. Career change is a journey, a continual process that requires a lot of time and energy, patience and flexibility, and a strong support network.

Sometimes you find a job description that highlights a need for experience. You want to get into the industry but have no experience. How can you gain experience if no one will hire you? It’s a paradox, but there are lots of different routes to get to the next level in your career.

What candidates do in a job interview is often more important than what they say. It’s important to be aware of your body language—even if the interviewer isn’t conscious of it, she is making constant judgments about your attitude and personality as conveyed by your posture, your eye contact and even your hand gestures. In fact, she’s already assessing you before you even open your mouth to say hello.

An apprenticeship is a paid period of training that allows you to learn a particular set of skills. If you’re sure of the industry you want to delve into, an apprenticeship might be a great way to explore it and familiarize yourself with the necessary skills.