Career Decision Making2022-08-03T14:58:58+03:00

Factors Affecting Career Planning

Several factors affect a person’s view of a career. Life stages and career anchors are the two main factors.

a). life stages.

People change constantly and thus view their careers differently at various stages of their lives. These changes are caused by the aging process, opportunities for growth, and status.

The basic life stages are:

Establishing Identity

  • Reached in the ages 10-20 years
  • Career alternatives are explored
  • Individual moves into the adult world

Growing and getting established

  • Reached in the ages 21-40 years
  • Individual chooses an occupation and establishes a career path

Self-maintenance and Self Adjustments

  • Achieved in the ages 41-50’s
  • Life accepted or adjusted
  • Career change and divorce may occur

Decline

  • Beyond say 55 years of age
  • Period of diminishing physical and
  • Mental capabilities
  • Low aspiration and motivation
  • Period of forced retirement

Individuals come up with different career development needs at the different stages in their lives.

  1. b) Career Anchor.

Human beings have different aspirations, backgrounds and experiences. Their personalities are molded, to a certain extent, by the results of interactions with their environments. Ordinary these are certain drives that make people select and prepare for a career.

  1. Skill Competences

What a person is able to do which is determined by the level of education and experience

  1. Security

This is the anchor for security-conscious individuals whose main interest is to stabilize their career situations. They often see themselves tied to a particular organization and geographical location.

  • Creativity

Creative individuals are entrepreneurial in their attitude. They want to build or create something that is entirely their own.

  1. Autonomy and Independence

The career anchor for independent people is a desire to be free from organizational constraints. They value autonomy and want to be on their own and work at their own pace.

  1. Likes and Dislikes Analysis.

The likes and dislikes analysis provides a person with a tool for assessing certain factors that could have an impact on the development of a career pass.

Likes are the things a person has discovered to be enjoyable. They can change overtime. eg people might enjoy extensive travelling at one stage of a career and at a later phase find it quite distasteful.

Likes and dislikes be taken into consideration in establishing individual career paths. People should choose careers based strictly on what is best for them personally.

Individual Life Goals

What do you live for? Is your life satisfying? People have different objectives in life, but generally there are common things that underline what we all aspire to be.

The educational system in Uganda has favoured a few people and for a long time those who got into Makerere University knew they were destined for a job in the civil service. This is the place that offered opportunity and security. This has now changed. The civil service has been rationalized and despite the increasing number of graduates from Universities, the recruitment has reduced. Besides, even job opportunities have changed.

Business and non-business organizations now require different kinds of people to work with them. Business itself requires entrepreneurs. People with initiatives, ideas and the drive to see through a business idea and succeed. These opportunities were looked at in the past with disdain.

Today the matter is different. Young men and women know that success is earning a good income and the key provider of good income is business.

This leads to what kind of career should you aspire for. There has been a tendency to seek out a degree so as to be eligible for “good jobs”. This has also changed. Many people now want the knowledge so that they can make it on their own. But how do you evolved a career. A career starts with a vision of the future. What do you want to be or do? What are your life goals? This section guides you through goal planning.

To help yourself live a satisfying, meaningful and balanced life and to set balanced goals consider the questions below and see if you presently lead a balanced life.

  1. Spiritual Goals
  • Do I spend time in prayer and mediation?
  • Is my spiritual life balanced?
  • What do I do for my own spiritual growth?
  • Where do I seek solutions to life’s unanswered questions?
  1. Educational Goals
  • Do I have a daily time for reading and study?
  • DO I keep myself up-to-date in my professional work?
  • Do I know what standard I want to achieve?
  • Where do I go and what do I do to seek knowledge?
  1. Health Goals
  • Do I have a personal fitness programme?
  • What do I eat?
  • How is my health?
  • Do I get as much exercise as I need?
  • Do I have a regular scheduled medical check up?
  • Do I know warning signs of mental fatigue and emotional stress?
  • Do I know how to respond intelligently to these warning signs?
  1. Family Goals
  • Do I have a family?
  • What is the size?
  • How much time do I spend with them?
  • Do I plan time for family recreation?
  • Do I have a realistic operating budget for the family?
  • How does the extended family business affect me?
  1. Social Goals
  • In what ways am I helping others?
  • Do I share knowledge and skills with others?
  • What is my position in society?
  • How does society see me?
  1. Financial/Business Goals
  • How much money do I want to earn?
  • How does my incomes affect my life style?
  • How much money do I want to save?
  • How much money am I going to give to worthwhile causes?
  1. Personal Interests
  • What hobbies do I have?
  • Do I read magazines, periodicals and newspapers?
  • What do I want to learn?
  1. Recreational Goals
  • Do I plan adequately for relation and recreation?
  • Do I take regular vacations?
  • On holidays/vacations am I able to disassociate myself from my work?
  • Do I have regular time off my work to relax?
  1. Other
  • If I had to live my life all over again, what would I want to do differently?
  • What would I like to do with the rest of my life?
  • When will I retire?

Having thought about these, how does the programme you are registering for fit for in? Our programmes are highly demanding and very intensive that require a lot of your time. You have to spend a lot of time studying and yet you have to balance it with other activities.

Of course during the years here, more time will be spent on studying but it should give a foundation in balancing other requirements later in life. Look at it now as the major focus of your activities and after passing it successfully, how will your life plan go.

Evaluating Personal Strengths and Weaknesses

Many of us always think we are good at everything and never accept we have weaknesses. People who recognize and accept weaknesses know themselves better and have chances of success than those who don’t.

This is called a strengths or weaknesses Balance Sheet SWOT:

You need to answer the following questions

  • What I am good at?
  • What have I achieved?
  • Where do I always fail?
  • When do I consult
  • How do I relate to other people?

To be able to achieve these you can rate yourself on the following characteristics or ask somebody else to do it for your candidly. Rate on scale 1-5 for major weakness

  • Oral communication skills                                           Academic Achievement
  • Ambition                                                                          Problem solving
  • Written skills Administrative Ability
  • Self-motivation    Creativity
  • Empathy Willingness
  • Co-operation                                      Creativity
  • Maturity Persuasion
  • Tolerance
  • Sociability

To let others do things

                   Strengths                      Weaknesses
§  Hard worker

§  Responsible

§  Honest

§  Good judgment

§  Confident

§  Give constructive criticism

§  Prompt

§  Dependable

§  Work well under pressure

§  Neat and orderly

§  Inefficient time manager

§  Hot tempered

§  Open mouth without engaging brain

§  Can’t stay put in one place e.g office, classroom

§  Put things off until last minute

§  Decision and judgments

§  Clock watcher

§  Like to spend money

§  Don’t smoke, drink etc

(The best way to identity weaknesses and strengths is to others to evaluate you)

Analyzing and selecting career opportunities 

Individual goals are matched with strengths and weaknesses which give you an indication of what career you are likely to pursue. If you are tolerant, persuasive, sociable then a marketing career may be ideal for you. If you are a number of crusher, then an Accounting career is ideal for you. But this is not always true. Engineers have been very successful politicians and sales people. Interest is important and deciding a career. Scan the environment and look and look at industry types. What are the characteristics of industries? Are they growing or declining? What type of work is available? What is the profitability of industries and organizations in the industry, choose the path you will follow using your heart and brain. What interests you and what are you are able to do. Match your strengths with industry requirement.

PLANNING GUIDE

Your Personal Goals

Many of us have dreams which remain illusions throughout life. We never see the gold we desire. This is because we never think about these dreams and design strategies to achieve what we want in life. If you don’t think things out, you cannot control them. In this section we help you plan your goals. As part of planning your life goals, write on a sheet of paper brief answers to the questions below:-

a). Your life-Where have you been?

  1. i) What have been, and still are, the major interests in your life?
  2. g -To serve society

-To be a business owner

– To live well

-To own a good family

  1. ii) List what you consider the most critical events in your life (positive and negative) that have made you who you are.
  2. g –  Study

–  Satisfying for others

–  Don’t give up, think

  1. b) Your success factors – What can you do?
  2. i) What do you consider your most important successful accomplishments? List the reasons for your successes.
  3. ii) What are your strengths?

e.g – Can communicate well

–  Can lead others

–  I take criticism well

iii)  What are your weaknesses?

e.g   – Cannot tolerate people

–  Poor at listening

–  Poor at remembering

–  Criticizing others especially in public

  1. c) Your strength – What means most to you?
  2. i) List five things/conditions that mean most in your life and work.

e.g   -Good family

– Good health

-Good salary

-Good car etc

  1. ii) What rewards mean the most to you?

e.g    -Status

-Money power recognition

-Achievement

-Sense of challenge

-Winning

-Close team relations

-Doing your own things?

iii) What are your deepest dreams in life? List them

e.g    – Drive a good car

-Live by the lake side

-Have a good family

-Be stinking rich

-Serve society etc

  1. iv) What are you willing to do to overcome factors that hinder you from fulfilling your dreams?

e.g    -Study

– Work hard

-Sleepless nights, and

-Earn to pay for fees etc

DISCOVERING YOUR LIFE GOALS

In this exercise, you will identify broad, personal life goals. Below find the broad life goals people frequently identify in alphabetical order. Rank the items in terms of your own values from one (most important to you) to twelve (least important).

Affection.  To obtain and share companionship and affection through immediate family and friends 

Commitment.   To dedicate myself totally to the pursuit of values and ideas (e.g to the work of evangelization)

Expertness.  To become an authority on a special subject, to reach an expert level of skill and accomplishment.

Leadership.  To become an influential leader, to organize and direct others to achieve social or organizational goals.

Parenthood.  To raise fine family 

Pleasure.  To enjoy life, to be happy and have fun, to have the good things in life.

Prestige.  To become well – known. To obtain recognition, award, and high social status 

Security.  To achieve a secure and stable position in work and financial situations 

Self-realization.  To optimize development, to realize my full creative and innovative potential. 

Service.   To contribute to the needs, satisfaction and development of others, to be helpful to others. 

Wealth. To earn or to have a greater deal of money.

Your Goal Achievement Plan

Select the goal you ranked No.1 in 7.1 and take it through the steps below. Make sure the goal is specific, realistic, challenging and measurable

  1. The specific goal wish to accomplish within the next 3-5 years
  1. This goal is important to me because:
  1. It relates to my longer-term life goal in that it:
  1. I consider the possibility to success to be:
  1. The obstacles are:

(i)  Things:

(ii)  People

  1. I plan to overcome these obstacles by:
  1. How does the Diploma/Degree you have registered for fit in this goal?

We suggest you keep a copy of this record possibly as you study and become more knowledgeable, your picture of things will change. You will have an opportunity to change them.

People change constantly and thus view their careers differently at various stages of their lives. These changes are caused by the aging process, opportunities for growth, and status.

Human beings have different aspirations, backgrounds and experiences. Their personalities are molded, to a certain extent, by the results of interactions with their environments.

The likes and dislikes analysis provides a person with a tool for assessing certain factors that could have an impact on the development of a career pass.

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