Choosing a career path!

Navigating career choices can be overwhelming. At CalAgJobs, we have gathered some tips and well-formulated ideas to help you make the right choice.

A great first place to start is Dr. John Holland’s Career Interest Game. Dr. Holland’s game states that there are six main career interests, those being realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional. In his game, you read descriptions of groups of people who fall into each of these categories and rate which ones you would be most likely to approach first.

Your top three become the “Holland code” that describes your career interests. The University of Missouri has crafted a list of careers with these codes attached to the descriptions. You then match up your code to the careers that share it and read more about what steps you need to take to reach that career.

Check out more information here: https://career.missouri.edu/career-interest-game/

Another way to decide upon what path to take in your career journey is to consider the lifestyle you hope to live in YOUR FUTURE. Start by answering the following questions.

• work from home, in the office, hybrid, in the field, other?
• part-time, full-time, seasonal?
• flexible hours, strict and structured hours, somewhere in the middle ground?
• independent work, teamwork, and how much managerial supervision fits you best with either option?
• be the one being managed or the one doing the managing?
• travel often, travel occasionally, never travel?
• work weekdays, work weekends, a mixture of both?
• focus on creative work, technical and routine work?
• doing the same thing every day or a variety of work that changes often?

You can modify this list to align with your career interests.

Once you have identified your interests, you can start matching up what you’ve chosen to jobs that fit those categories. This approach can guarantee that your chosen career path provides you with a work and life balance that you love, even if you have to compromise until you discover something that meets the majority of what you’d want.

Don’t know what opportunities are out there? Start at www.calagjobs.com/jobs/ to see what we currently have available. Then navigate to our social media sites on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to view the postings for past roles. For resources, you can learn more about agriculture careers here https://calagjobs.com/resources/agricultural-career-options/. By seeing what opportunities exist for you in California within the agriculture industry you can begin planning what fits your goals and work towards choosing a career path.