How to Plan a Career 6: Interview People

This continues our series on how to plan a career you will enjoy and earn a satisfactory wage

Knowing your values, skills, interests, and what you want from a career guides your choice. The Holland Personality Codes, Occupational Outlook Handbook, and O*NET describe occupations in detail. They also refer you to professional and trade associations for additional information. While all these sources provide you with good information, people working in the occupation remain the best source of information.

What Information You Should Gather

Prepare questions that will gather useful information. You can adapt your questions from these:

• What do you enjoy the most about your job? What frustrates you the most?
• What tasks do you spend most of your day performing? Describe a typical day?
• How much do you get to do (one of your motivated skills) a day? Week? Month?
• How much does your job allow/prevent you to (one of your always valued)?
• What do you see the future holding for this occupation? Is it growing or shrinking?
• What advice would you give someone thinking of entering this work?

Who Should You Interview

People doing the work you want to explore are the best source of information. You can also gain valuable information talking to the others who work closely with your desired occupation.

You can find people in professional associations, company web sites, articles about the industry or companies. Your family, friends, associates may know someone working in the occupation or industry. They can refer you to people if you ask

• “Who do you know working as a (desired occupation)? or at (a company)?
• “Who do you know that could give me information about (desired occupation)?”
• “I want to learn more about (desired occupation) who do you suggest I talk to?”

Do not expect a lot of time with the people you interview. You make better progress making 3-4 3-minute phone calls coupled with 4-5 two question emails, than one 30 minute interview. People do not have 30 minutes to give you in one stop.

Come back on Monday when we put it all together on how to decide what you want to do