“Career” is one of those words that seems to hold a wealth of meaning. It means a successful culmination of your years at university, it means becoming an adult, and it means taking much more responsibility in your life.
Perhaps all these associations attached to the word are what makes the process of looking for a job extremely overwhelming, especially for students in their last year of undergraduate studies.
When we get down to the specific reasons behind feeling overwhelmed, I find that it’s actually really different for each student, depending on his or her previous experience or perception of what a career is. However, one helpful mindset in most circumstances is the “start now, start small” mindset. Tackling ‘career’ as a whole is understandably very daunting, so it’s super helpful to break it into smaller parts. By doing so, it becomes more manageable to take action for each part. Hopefully, with each small success, you will be motivated to take on bigger and more challenging parts of your career journey.
I learned this mindset from more experienced career practitioners and have experimented with it in my own career journey. Below, I share three strategies that have been helpful in managing career anxiety for myself, and have given me confidence to continue taking on bigger steps.
Engage in self-reflection
Knowing yourself gives you focus in your career search. There is a dizzying array of careers out there, supporting different causes, in a multitude of work environments. Having an idea of your preferences or pet peeves with regards to type of work, location, field, and other factors helps lessen the feeling of being overwhelmed and gives you focus as you shift through career postings. Remember, these preferences can always change. That’s normal and healthy, especially as you continue growing in experience and skill set. However, having that outline allows you to get into the career scene with a clearer vision.
Talk to people
Once you have an idea of what you want out of a career (or even while you’re in the process of that self-reflection), talk to people. It’s good to hear the different possible careers out there. Growing up, I vacillated between wanting to be all of two professions because those were some of the only ones I knew of. However, in university, some amazing program leaders and supervisors shared their career stories, which gave me insight into careers I wasn’t aware of. It’s funny to think that it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I learned about the field I’m thinking of pursuing now! Being curious about other people’s stories, along with your own ongoing self-reflection, guides you in figuring out your career.
Get involved
Volunteering grows your knowledge. This is a good way to start testing those possible careers out. Are you thinking about being a teacher? Why not volunteer at local day camps and observe the ins and outs of the job? What do you like? What don’t you like? Can you see yourself in this kind of position and environment?
Volunteering grows your network. When you volunteer, you gain a whole new community of people you can learn from. If this is the field you want to get into, it’ll be great to have people who are already experienced and can connect you to resources you may need!
Volunteering grows your skill set. Whether or not you want to stay in that field after volunteering, you now have a new toolbox of skills. It could be in communications, social media, or administration. Volunteering, in many more forms than these, is a good way to get things off the ground for your career and to really grow you as a person.
