Your choice of career is one of the most important decisions you will make in your life. Get it right and you can earn a good living while feeling satisfied about your contribution to the world. Get it wrong and you could face a long and very boring career.

Of course, there is absolutely nothing wrong with switching careers no matter what age you are. More and more people these days are realising how important it is to get this right. So how will you work out which career is the perfect one for you?

Ask Other People About What They Do

One of the easiest ways to find out about a lot of careers is to ask other people about what they do and how much they enjoy it. Among your friends, family and neighbours you probably know people in a wide range of roles. Not all of them will be ideal for you but by asking about them you will start to work out what your best and worst options are. Just about everyone is happy to talk about their work, whether it is to speak highly of it or to say how terrible it is. You should take advantage of this fact to find out the good and bad points about as many different types of career as possible.

Consider Your Personality

We all have different personalities and this means that we are all suited to differing careers. Matching your personality to your career sounds like an obvious thing to do but you might be surprised at how many people neglect to do it. You should take the time to think about how your personality could be of most use to your career. If you can find a way of starting out in a career which suits your personality you will have a far better chance of enjoying a rewarding future. Once you have come up with some ideas for jobs which might be of interest to you the next step is to look for them on an internet job finder. You might also discover some types of role which you never even knew existed but which match your criteria very well.

Think of Your Hobbies

Another option for finding a great job is to work out which ones could fit in with your hobbies. It might sound too farfetched to even consider finding a position which ties in with things you enjoy doing but it is something that people all over the world do all the time. If you enjoy reading you could work as a librarian. If you enjoy cooking you could look for a job in a restaurant. If you enjoy travelling you could check out cruise ship vacancies. For just about every type of hobby imaginable there is at least one job which matches it. It just takes a bit of time and thought to try and get a career which lets you enjoy your favourite things while earning money. Of course, no one can guarantee that you will still carry on enjoying them once you do them for a living. Once you start doing something as a job you might begin to look on it in a different light. However, you need to give it a try to find out whether this is the case or not.

Try a Few Different Things

As touched on in the last point, it is pretty much impossible to know how much you are going to like a certain career until you try it. What this means is that you shouldn’t just settle for a job you aren’t happy with. You can’t say for certain that you will enjoy a specific other job more than the one you are doing but there is only one way to find out the truth. If you have gone through the previous points we have looked at here then you should have a reasonable idea about what kind of career is going to be most suitable for you. However, we can’t rule out the possibility that something completely unexpected ends up being the perfect career for you. If you follow the first bit of advice on this list and speak to other people you might find that many people fell into a great job without even trying while others are deeply unhappy in something which appeared to be perfect for them. We all take different approaches to finding the most suitable career but as long as you look on the finding of the idea job as being part of the journey you can enjoy it and make the most of it at the same time.

Aimee Coppock is a jobs market expert who has helped many people find the right direction in their careers over the years.