Common Mistakes When Choosing a Career - Career Management - Careers

First of all, let's divide the reasons for choosing a particular profession to external and internal. External reasons are related to environmental factors: the opinion of parents and friends, desire to achieve success, fear of condemnation. For internal reasons only you are responsible - they are defined by your abilities, skills, habits and character.

So what makes a modern young person choose a particular career?

Top reason is prestige.This reason can often become a trap. These days economical and law specialties are the most popular ones. However, job market feels redundancy of specialists in these fields. The conclusion is simple: there is no sense in relying on prestige of career only. At all times, some professions were considered prestigious, while others were believed, to say the least, unworthy. There is, for example, a profession of cesspool cleaner – who wants to be the one?

Meanwhile, the society needs economists and lawyers as well as nurses, plumbing specialists, street cleaners etc. So put your interests and abilities in the first place and only then think of prestige. Remember that every highly professional individual, be it lawyer, doctor, or simple worker, is equally respected.

Michael Weller has a story about a man who was dreaming to become a street cleaner. And then what?He graduated from high school, he entered a college because his parents wanted him to do so, all his life he tried to learn something he didn’t want to do. And then, when he retired, he became a street cleaner, and finally found happiness.

It is not recommendedto choose a career under pressure. You can only listen to the opinion of your parents or friends, butthe career choice is your own business, no one will live your life for you. Imagine that you have chosen mathematics because your mom wanted it. A year has passed, two, or even five – and you understand how passionately you hate all those numbers and formulas, and this work seems so dull to you! Wouldn’t you be sorry for all those wasted years?

Similarly, if you dream to enter a medical school to accompany your friend, think whether it is worth to become a physical therapist, or surgeon, or dentist, if you are fainting from a little drop of blood.

Have you ever wondered how many years of hard work were spent by the ballerina to reach success?If you are intrigued by the “visible” side of some career, it does not mean that you fully understand what it takes to become a professional in this particular field. You are watching ballerina flits on the stage like a butterfly. And when admiring her beautiful dance do you think of years of hard work, pain in muscles, and dozens of disappointments that led a ballerina to this particular moment?

Ignorance or underestimation of some of your physical features and shortcomings is one of the false guides to the right career choice.

If you have a heart disease, let’s face it, you won’t become a pilot. People with allergy cannot become chemists or hairdressers. It is unreasonable to dream about career that can worsen your health. In some cases health problems become an obstacle for some kind of work, and you should submit it.


In any case, do not think about career choice as of something unchangeable, something that once and for all determines your destiny. You have a long life ahead of you, and you can always find some time for training, courses, and even radical change of career.