This might not be the best community for this, but I don’t know what job I want after high school. I’m afraid of pursuing a job that I’ll end up hating. How do I figure out what job I want when I grow up?
You need to figure out:
- What you like
- What you’re good at (or can become good at with training/a degree)
- What people will pay you to do
If you like something, you’re good at it, and people will pay you to do it, that’s a career. Stick with it your entire life.
If you’re good at something and people will pay you to do it but you don’t like it, that’s a job. Work it to pay the bills, but don’t be afraid to jump ship as soon as something better comes along.
If you like something and are good at it but no one will pay you to do it, that’s a hobby. You’ll need to supplement that with a job to get by.
If you like something and people will pay you for it but you’re not good at it, fake it ‘till you make it, my friend.
Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind
Don’t be so hung up on getting a job you hate. The secret they don’t tell you is that pretty well everyone hates their job. Get out and pursue things that seem interesting to you, and don’t be afraid that you won’t be good enough, that was my big downfall when I was younger. Since then I’ve held many wildly different jobs.
I started pursuing IT since I love computers, but ended up hating being an on-call computer janitor. I did fire surpression, then IT sales (hated that too), then randomly got a job on the railroad. After bouncing around the railroad I have now ended up as Jack of all trades master of none handyman that does maintenance for a nonprofit, and I love it.
I was more surprised than anyone to find out that I preferred working with my hands, and working outdoors. I had always dreamed of a cushy job with a nice office where I could wear fancy shoes. But now I’m a nerd for workboots who absolutely does not thrive in an office environment.
But essentially I’m saying try not to sweat it. It may take you a long time to settle into something you like. Don’t be afraid to go outside your comfort zone because you just might like it.
[cynical rant – take with a bucket of salt]
you don’t
you pick something that you are competent at that pays the bills and keeps you alive and gives you enough free time to work on what you actually want to do
traditional boomer advice was to pick something you love, but after putting in endless hours of doing it over and over just to make enough to keep you fed and provide a place to sleep, you will grow to resent it with a passion – for your own mental health, you absolutely must maintain a separation between the job and your personal life
You should pick something that pays the bills and gives you free time to do what you want, but it’s good for it to be something you find some enjoyment in. Not necessarily something you love. But something you can get some level of satisfaction from learning and doing.
Yea that seems about right. I wanna find a job that I’ll be content enough with doing for at least 5-10 years, but not necessarily something I love. Something that pays the bills is very important since it’s what you need to survive and I also don’t want to be stuck in a career where I’m struggling to survive or have room for my hobbies and free time.
If you can find something you love that pays okay, though, do that.
The saying that “if you’re doing something you love you’ll never work a single day” is true. I mean you’re still working but it feels way better than doing something just for money.
When you’re just working for money it feels like an imposition and like work is taking you away from life. But when you’re in a job that you love, your whole day feels like part of your life, like you get to enjoy everything.
I’ll keep that in mind, thanks
I lucked into a great job in my field, but I also figured out what I wanted to do by 15 IIRC. So I could make it happen when the luck struck.
There’s still “work stuff” like getting to meetings at a particular time I don’t love, and some tedious stuff too. There’s the HR training etc that’s annoying. But day to day I also get to ‘play’ with stuff I could never afford as a hobby.
Even if you find what you love, and get a job doing it doesn’t mean it’s a great job. Pay attention to others, do they stick around, or are they bailing ASAP? Is there a functional HR department (often not in small business and there are some stories there)? Do management seem to have a clue, or are they crap with unrealistic deadlines and budgets? Be ready to still change jobs inside whatever fields you like and get into.
Also, like somebody else said, try and figure out if you have to go to college for your field. Or if there’s an apprenticeship you need. The ‘try a bunch of different things’ isn’t bad advice, but while you can become a roofer pretty easily, you’re not trying out being a doctor…
Thank you. I’ll be sure to remember that. I can see how the work environment can make or break a job.
yea, money is king. the feeling of relief when u find out u can afford ur medical bills by urself.
I agree - I loved art in high school and really wanted to be an illustrator. But I graduated in 08 (recession) and I didn’t have the confidence to try to make it as a freelancer or whatever.
I ended up choosing a really boring path in office work because I just wanted to make sure I was inside at a computer while I was working. At first it was so depressing - I had built my identity around my artwork. But I eventually found a new field that I loved and transitioned into that thanks to skills and resources from my boring office experience - I’m really happy with it all today and don’t regret anything.
I guess what I’m saying is that I’ve found happiness/success by disconnecting my identity from my occupation and focusing on the work environment I want instead of the content of the work.
I’m not sure if this is how you meant it, but I take competent in a bad connotation. I am competent in many skills, but some of them I would despise doing on a daily basis. I would base it on what you’re good at and what you wouldn’t mind doing daily.
I’m shocked people seem to agree with this so much. While there are certainly circumstances where you don’t have much choice, spending your life in a job/career that doesn’t give you meaning and fulfillment will probably depress everyone sooner or later.
Many people don’t find meaning and fulfillment through their jobs, and that’s okay. No one is saying go out and find a job you hate just to pay the bills, but the advice of finding something you love so much that you’ll feel like you’ve never worked a day in your life is inapplicable to most people. If you happen to be one of the few people in the world who love what you do, great. But the reality is that the vast majority of people do not make a career out of their passion, and that’s just fine.
To OP, find a job you don’t mind, one that gives you the right balance of money, time, and fulfillment in your life. Even if that fulfillment comes from things outside of work like hobbies, friends, family, or something else. And remember that the choices you make now are not set in stone. You can always change your mind later if you find you’re not happy.
Yea, I’ll be trying to do that. Find fulfillment from somewhere, whether it be my job, or somewhere else, or a little bit of both both. Thanks.
Nah, it’s much better that way. I go to my job to get money, not to find purpose in life. My boss and employer does not get to dictate my fulfillment.
My job is my job, I use money from my job to go do stuff that has actual meaning to me.
You do you, but it would drain me too much to work a job just for the money if it doesn’t fulfill me in some way directly. I’d compare it to working a shit job your whole life with the goal to finally retire and enjoy life.
Only then, you’re too tired or have health problems, so you can’t enjoy life after all.
Are you working 80+ hours a week or something? If you have zero free time outside of work, I guess there’s no room in your life to find any kind of meaning or purpose outside your job. Then you’re left trying to find meaning in a shit job.
Trying to find a job that is “meaningful” that also pays the bills are few and far between. Most meaningful things in life don’t pay well or at all, or have very few job openings, or are extremely unstable (self employment or startups). Otherwise you’re left with your life “purpose” in a corporation, which only means “make more money”, which is pretty shallow at best.
Work-life balance is important, and I think keeping work and life separate is a huge part of that. Forcibly mixing the two only causes more stress, either from one adding to the other, or from severely limiting your job prospects overall. Making your job = life severely limits both.
There is no such thing anymore as a job for life anymore that ended in the 80s. I don’t honestly think that’s there’s a career for life anymore either, that ended in the early years of this century.
Asking someone to choose something to do for 50 years (if they’re lucky) at 16 or 18 is folly.
Build yourself a portfolio of skills which you are proficient in and enjoy doing. I would include (1) languages in that and (2) the technique of communication over and above any technical skills you possess.
I say languages because a second language awakens a different mode of thought, maybe not too much if the languages are closely related.
I’m Gen X and was probably never conventionally employable. Company Roles I’ve had seemed to seek me rather than me them. I wish I had been much more aggressive about a second language much earlier on.
It’s not the language itself. It seems to assist in fluidity of communication. I’m not sure that I can explain what I mean by that: the structure of French sentences differs wildly from English sentences sometimes, but about 30% of English words are French in origin. It seems to encourage me to thing about how I am conveying my idea in words without me being cognisance of that happening.
This is a major failing of the school system.
The best I can recommend is that you try out jobs now – but maybe skip anything ‘fake’ like online courses unless you think they prepare you for what’s in the next sentence. Go find people professionally doing a thing you might like, and try to work with them, somehow. Internships, volunteer work, organizing events, etc. File paperwork and make coffee, if that means you get to see the work actually being done.
Barring that, do the thing yourself if possible. Publish the results. All code goes on public repositories, all stories should be submitted to magazines or literature groups. All songs written must be sung in public. Get certified for CPR and first aid if considering medicine, and volunteer using it. Get an amateur radio license and build a radio. Look at jobs on a freelancing platform, and just do them on your own to build a portfolio (maybe actually apply for the jobs, once you have a portfolio). Not every type of job can be tried out this way, but many can.
You’re going to get rejected a lot, you can’t just show up with a resume and demand a job (people who claim this works are weird). People who create and do nothing will mock you sometimes. A lot of jobs want young people ‘out of sight and in school’ too. However, this kind of disappointment happens to all of us at some point anyway, so may as well get it over with.
If you’re lucky, you’ve got a few years between the age of say 14 and 19 where you’re not expected to support yourself financially but your brain works as well as it’s ever going to. While it’s useful to get good grades while you’re in school (although they are useless afterward), I think it’s a mistake to focus on that at the expense of actually trying to do things. A college degree is too big of an investment of time and money to go into blind.
If you’re in a situation where you do have to support yourself or your family before finishing school, then the necessities of life obviously take precedent. I won’t pretend I have a good solution to that difficult situation.
Thanks. I don’t have to support myself financially before finishing school. I’ll take your advice for doing and trying stuff.
do quacks quack?
And what’s worse ? It will most likely change overtime…
If you don’t know how to get started, try something you’re curious about, that will offer possibilities to learn and see how it goes, don’t worry about it and keep in mind that it might be that interest that leads you to other jobs later as long as you’re willing to learn and not stuck in a dead end job.
That’s the neat part, you dont. I’m in my mid 30s and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
Do a bunch of low-commitment jobs. Don’t commit to a 10+ year path on something you haven’t experienced.
Volunteer and work a bunch of nothing jobs. Get a sense of what works for you and what doesn’t.
Then when you’ve experienced a few things with throwaway jobs, come back to the question of what you want to invest serious time into.
I always liked the idea of going to a college that had a program with a work term so you can see if you like it and also get some experience. I would say talk to some people in areas that you are interested in and see if you find any jobs you may look doing.
College is a great place to start. Unfortunately college is ridiculously expensive these days, but community college is still pretty affordable. There are so many things you don’t even know exist in the world right after highschool. The world also works a lot differently than you’ve seen so far, so a college level education is really beneficial. Go to community college, knock out some Gen Ed courses, and take some interesting classes for your electives. You’ll learn about stuff that you didn’t know existed and you may find that you’re passionate about some of those things.
Nobody gets out of high school and gets the job they want when they grow up. ;)
Your first job is going to suck. It’s going to be hard work. The pay and hours are not going to be great. You won’t be respected as an employee or often as a human being.
What it’s going to teach you are organizational skills. Show up on time. Do the best job you can do. Admit your mistakes and learn from them.
Carry what you learn there to the next job and the next job. Do better each time. Learn new skills. Find jobs that interest you.
If you can, go to college for a STEM degree, network with other people and employers, and when you get out of college, you can do what you want.
If college isn’t for you, find a trade you’re good at and enroll in trade school. Plumbers, electrictians, HVAC techs, mechanics are never out of work.
Avoid: Retail work. Restaurant work. It will break you. Fine for when you’re in school, not if you’re out of school.
After highschool (I actually dropped out) I worked a ton of dead end jobs. Cooking mostly, but there was roofing, painting, digging holes, lots of manual labour.
Eventually I moved to Vancouver and had an opportunity to become a card dealer. It was… How do I put it so you can fully understand… The worst experience by far, ever. It was toxic abusive, exhausting, and just all around the worst.
My partner at the time got pregnant and she actually gave me an out, said I didn’t have to be there at all. I thought my options over and decided I was going to be apart of this kids life and enrolled in college for IT. It was a bit of cheating really, I was already good at it so why not. 18 years later, I’m a consultant, doing well and my daughter is starting grade 12 next year.
I always liked computers, so I got an entry level job in IT.
Just followed my passion tbh.
Same here. WTF do I do with a history degree… Joined a helpdesk because I liked fixing tech, transitioned to web development because that was more fun, spent years enjoying learning and progressing, then moved into UX because that was more rewarding (and less stressful).
I’m glad I gravitated towards IT because it gave me a lot of freedom and choice - and the money was always good.
I’d be careful with the “follow your hobbies” advice, I’ve known a lot of frustrated people who feel they’ve wasted years studying / trying to get a job in video games, acting, that sort of thing. Seems you have to be in the top 1% and have a ton of luck or connections to stand a chance.
Don’t worry too much about getting ‘locked in’ to a job, you can always do a career change, it’s a lot easier than you think.
Actually that is the biggest question I ask myself. I’m almost done with my master but I’m not sure if I wanna become a teacher anymore. After graduating I will try some different jobs and see how I feel about it. I think it’s important that you have some kind of fun / fulfillment at work, otherwise I couldn’t bare doing it (maybe a ADHD kinda stuff). If you can don’t be afraid of exploring your options and look into jobs that aren’t related to your education. I wish you the best of luck finding your way in life. Important is that you are happy and doing it for yourself imho.
