When choosing a career path, the most important thing is to do the research and plan ahead.

When we are talking about doing research for career cruising, we need to understand its industry. Its past, present, future. You don’t just wanna look at the present condition, because who knows what might happen in the future that could affect the industry and ultimately affect you. Another thing is try to talk to people who are currently working in the industry. Not to mention the ones who are just starting jobs in the industry, both spectrum of people are worth talking to - both senior and junior. Get as many perspectives as possible from them, but remember not to solely “rely” on their words, you must filter them with your own lenses (experience).

Planning ahead is another aspect of choosing the “right” career path. You want to choose something that you like, that you are willing to put a minimal of 30-40 hours per week into it. Also, I assume everyone has long-term goals, so try to evaluate your prospect career path, ask yourself the following questions:

  1. “Will this path lead to the long-term goals that I’ve set for myself?” If the answer is yes, think twice and ask again.

  2. “How long will it take to achieve them?” If the answer is in a reasonable range, think the third time and identify any implicit assumption you made. For example, you might have assumed that you will be the top 10% performer in the job market, which may not be true.

  3. “Are there any alternatives currently available that I would be interested in pursuing, yet still able to achieve my long-term goals?” If there are, go do some research on those career paths. If not, you better want to break down your long-term goals now, because these goals might be too abstract.

When you break down your long-term goals into short-term goals, try to categorize them into different time buckets. For example, your immediate goal is this week, next week, one month from now, and so on until 6 months. This is the tipping point of planning (based on my own experience), where the further you plan out beyond 6 months, the more ineffective it becomes, because there are too many external unpredictable factors influencing the environment and your own knowledge.

Once you have a timeline of all the small goals for the next 6 months. Try to accomplish them just like a to-do list. But remember to revise them every week, as they will become more accurate when you are closer to the “deadline”.

Alright, that’s about it. Actually, I didn’t know what I was going to write until I started writing. I treated this as an English writing practice, so please ignore any grammatical errors :P