Career Planning: The next step: Knowing different jobs and the job scopes out there

WHAT jobs are there out there? What do people do in these jobs?

The next common questions that we get after letting them go through self-discovery and awareness tests is "what are my options?"; "I do not even know the different types of jobs available"; "what do these people do in their job"

Generally, we found that people have two main issues:

1. Insufficient knowledge on the types of jobs available
2. Insufficient knowledge on the job scopes

Usually we advice our clients to narrow down on the industry (engineering, banking, etc) and the nature of the job (front end, middle office, back end) based on their personality tests results. After which, it is important for them to understand the job scopes of the nature of the job in the industry that they are interested in. This is where we worked with experts in the field to advise our clients on what to expect in the job.

I remember advising a group of students from a local university in Singapore with a Career Professional and almost 70% of them told us that they are interested in becoming an auditor. We asked them, "why an auditor? Do you know what they do for a living?" Surprisingly, most of them shook their head. Most of them wanted to be an auditor because they have heard of an auditor earning quite a lot of money (probably a partner); they have family/friends who are auditors and they look up to them; they like accounting modules (studying and liking accounting module is radically different from being an auditor) etc. We sat down and talked to them about the job scope and nature of being an auditor and I share with them how a lot of my friends struggled as an auditor and left the industry at the end of the day. Of course, there are some who pressed on and are doing well now but I think it is important for a person to find out what the job is really like including the working hours, the peak and lull period, how are people in the job coping with their lives etc before deciding on the job.

Hence, to kick start knowing your options, start off by narrowing down the industry and nature of job then start researching online and/or talk to people. Don't jump into a job you THINK you will like before finding out what it really is like!