Your Career Opportunities

Every year there are thousands of you young men and women, who are
leaving school or college with the sole object of starting your working
careers. One of the biggest problems you will face is, there are just
not enough good career opportunities available for all of you. That in
itself is bad enough, but unfortunately the majority of you, are not
sure in your own minds which is the right career for you to pursue.
Should you by chance happen to know what career you want to pursue.
Most of you are not one hundred percent certain how you are going to
succeed in securing a position in your chosen career. The most
important point for you to remember when deciding on the career you
want to pursue is. That you have forty odd years to go before you can
retire and plenty of time to regret it if you get it wrong. Another
important point to take into consideration and something which nobody
will ever tell you, is that eighty per cent of the workforce are
working in a career that will not give them the job satisfaction they
are seeking. From the day they leave school until the day they retire
most of the work force will just drift into one job after another.
Never finding true happiness or contentment in their working
environment. Unfortunately it is a fact of life that every single day
of the week, thousands of people all over the world resign from their
jobs, because they are dissatisfied with the conditions and the terms
they are working under. Only to try and find a job somewhere else, that
they will truly love, and enjoy. Unfortunately in most cases this never
happens and they start the cycle all over again.
Unless you find an occupation that you love, and are enthusiastic
about, you are on a never ending treadmill going nowhere, only becoming
more and more disillusioned. For want of a better word you are just
marking time until you can retire. Unfortunately until that retiring
time comes you will grow to hate the occupation and everything
associated with it. Which can have a knock on effect, not only in your
working environment but also in your social life as well?
To have a full and rewarding life you must find a career that you are
enthusiastic about and enjoy, looking forward to going to work to gain
valuable experience and knowledge. Experience not only in your working
environment but in life in general, willing and eager to learn
something new everyday, that will stimulate your mind and broaden your
prospective of life.
Each and every one of us has a purpose and reason for being on this
earth, even if we do not realise it at the time. The secret is finding
what that purpose and reason is, that will ensure you have a complete
and satisfying life. You must also have direction in your life
otherwise how do you know you are on the right track to achieving the
life style that you desire. If you get off to a bad start by being in
the wrong career. This unfortunately can lead to you having a bad
attitude which in turn can lead to a life of crime, drugs or alcohol
abuse and in extreme circumstances, depression and suicide.
Your working life is just beginning and has a long way to go. So it is
essential that you get off to a good start in a career that you love
and enjoy. Any guidance or assistance you get has to be constructive
and always have your best interests at heart. It is not only for you
immediate benefit, but for the benefit of any future family you may
have. Your parents, family and friends need to help you, in as many
ways as they can, to make sure you have the best possible start to your
working career.
The help and advice that parents can afford you is vital, but under no
circumstances let them push you into a career that you do not
particularly enjoy or want. It is imperative that your parents let you
be true to yourself, and let you follow your own heart. Pushing you
into a career that you do not want is the road to certain disaster and
can lead to trouble for yourself in later life, when you have your own
family to worry about. Parents should be supportive and assist you to
choose a career that you will love and enjoy, but the object word is
HELP.
The important thing for your parents to remember is, this is your life
and you must be allowed to follow your own heart, so you can achieve a
happy, contented and satisfying life style. Getting you off to a good
start in your working life is essential, not only for your home life
but more importantly, it sets you up for the rest of your life. The
help and advice you get from your parents, teachers and professional
people needs to be informative and constructive. But at the same time
they must leave you the choice to make the finial decision on which
career you are going to pursue.
I know at times this can be difficult because most of you do not know
yourselves, which career you want to follow. The proof of this is in
the universities, you start out doing one course then halfway through
you change direction for one reason or another. Even after all that, it
may not turn out that the career you have settled on, may not be the
career you where destined to follow for the rest of your working life.
So you do not waste and flitter away a lot of years going in the wrong
direction, it is imperative that you find the career that you will love
and enjoy right from the start. Being in the wrong career, which you
slowly grow to hate, can lead to some very serious and damaging
consequence. The hate slowly grows causing you stress which in turn can
lead to ill health. Stress related to your work can come out in many
ways. Making you temperamental, flying off the handle for the least
little thing or turning you to drink or drugs due to frustration and
all because you are in the wrong career.
The transition from being a student to joining and becoming part of
the workforce can be dramatic to say the least. All of a sudden your
whole life changes from being a carefree student with plenty of
holidays and leisure time. To having to adhere to strict rules and
regulations, duties to perform, strict hours to keep, dead lines to
meet, targets to achieve. This can be a minefield for you if you are
not fully informed or advised exactly what to expect once you start
your career. There are just so many factors that affect you and come
into the equation. Critical factors that play a major part in any
career that you want to pursue. Be that career a police person, doctor,
lawyer, fire person, waiter or waitress, nurse, taxi driver, airline
pilot, the armed forces, or in the building/construction
industry.
These critical factors cover a wide and varied range of topics,
depending on the career you have chosen to pursue. Such as death or
injury on duty, medical aid, accidents both at work and outside working
hours. What would be the consequence if any of the above, God forbid,
ever happened to the you and what would be the repercussions of that
accident? Where would this leave you or your present or future family
both financially and physically? Simple everyday things like a car
accident that leaves you paralysed from the waist or neck downwards, as
with superman Christopher Reeves a riding accident. Everybody including
myself all think the same thing 'Oh that will never happen to me'.
Unfortunately this is real life, and they do happen, and worst of all
when we least expect them, creating endless problems not only for
yourself but also the families involved. There are just so many factors
for you to considered when you are choosing your career. Topics such as
duties at work, wage structure, learning and promotion opportunities,
creating a money monster through overtime, pensions, flexitime, holiday
pay and sick pay, to name but a few.
There are lots of things for you to consider and think about when
choosing your career, but that first initial interview could turn out
to be the most important factor of all. This may be the only chance you
have of getting into the career that you want to remain in for the rest
of your working life. Should you be lucky enough to know exactly right
from the word go, what you want to pursue as your career. Once you have
settled on a career, the next major hurdle for you to overcome is, how
do you go about obtaining an interview with an employer to obtain the
position you are seeking? How do you make certain you are invited to
attend an interview, thereby giving you the chance to portray all your
skills and knowledge for the position in question?
That's one obstacle to overcome but then comes the major stumbling
block and where most of you youngsters loose out badly, the interview
itself. You need to know right from the minute you see the
advertisement in the newspaper, job centre or wherever the steps you
need to take to be successful. It can be soul destroying and very
frustrating if you do not approach the application and the interview in
the right way. You may only have the one chance of securing the job of
your dreams, so you must approach it correctly with a good resume,
introductory letter and references to obtain the interview in the first
instance. Then you must know how to conduct yourself in the interview
and how to handle telephone interruptions, people walking in and out of
the interview. How you greet more than one interviewer, how you handle
two questions thrown at you almost simultaneously with confidence,
style and panache. The things you must do to be successful and the
things you must not do. How you must portray the right attitude,
confidence and body language in the interview to make it a
success.
So when you walk out of the interview room, you leave the impression,
in the mind/s of the interviewer or interviewer's, that this is the
person that they want to fill the vacant position. The interview can be
a minefield and in some cases a nightmare, it can also be a very
daunting task in every sense of the word. If you get off to a bad start
by being in the wrong career, you have a long time to regret it. Regret
over time turns into frustration which in turn can turn into a volatile
temper, stress leading to heart attacks or other medical set backs. All
the above must be taken into consideration, after all it is one of the
many major contributing factors that play a role in setting you up for
life.
The change from you being a school or college student with plenty of
holidays and free time, to becoming a member of the workforce is
dramatic to say the least. All of a sudden you are subjected to a whole
new set of circumstances. Such as time keeping, deadlines, targets and
being proficient at your job. This applies more so if the profession
you have chosen to follow is connected to the emergency services. Such
as the fire brigade, police or any career where personal risk could be
involved. With these type of careers you must give one hundred and ten
percent concentration at all times. So in the process of carrying out
your duties you never put your own life or any of your colleges in
danger. If you are in a career that you love and enjoy then to keep
that one hundred and ten percent concentration going is not a problem.
You are eager, keen and willing to learn so you can be the best at
whatever career you chose.
However if you find yourself in a career that you are slowly growing
to hate, then that one hundred and ten percent concentration is out of
the window. As I have said before this is an accident waiting to
happen. Your minds are young and still seeking knowledge. It should be
full of questions as to what makes the world and your career tick.
Through school or college your mind hopefully should has been
stimulated to seek out knowledge. When you start your career this
stimulation must be carried forward or else your mind will very soon
start to stagnate. The main problem with this is that you do not
realise your mind is starting to switch off because you have no real
interest in the work you are doing.
During the course of my career as a freelance construction manager I
have seen it happen only far to often. A young adult like yourselves
comes into the building or construction industry, mainly because it is
one of the easiest industries to get into as a labourer or to learn a
trade. Unfortunately their heart is not in the job they are doing and
it shows in a number of ways. They don't take any pride in their work,
they don't pay enough attention to the task in hand, an accident
waiting to happen, unfortunately it is only a matter of time. Because
they have no real interest in the work they start to take time off,
invariably drinking, which in itself can lead to serious problems. They
get bored with the work because they have no interest and nothing to
stimulate their minds, again a bad accident waiting to happen.
Unfortunately I have seen this happen over and over again, in many
different countries that I have worked in during my construction
career.
Your mind is a wonderful thing, but it needs to be stimulated for it
to develop regardless of any disability that you might have. Therefore
it is imperative that you find a career that you love and enjoy,
regardless of your circumstances. It may not be possible to secure a
position in the career of your dreams immediately. All the more reason
that you must know exactly what you want to achieve with your life.
When you set off on the journey of your working life it must be in the
right career for you and you must avoid like the plague if possible
going down the wrong path. Otherwise it will all end in tears, or in
some circumstances even worse than tears.

Ray Rock has been a freelance construction manager for over twenty
years, he also ran his own successful company in South
Africa for a number of years before returning to England. In that time
he has been both interviewee and interviewer on more occasions than he
cares to remember. This is the information that he is passing on to you
youngsters so you don't have to make as many silly mistakes as he
did.
His web site can be found at http://www.surocpublishingltd.com.
Make sure you drop by and pick up free the first chapter of his book
YOUR WORKING FUTURE, The Guide to Choosing a Career and Being
Successful.
Or e-mail him at surocpublishing@aol.com.