Tips for choosing the right college and profession

Recently, I published a text about the reasons for choosing the profession and college of psychology. I received several responses by email, asking questions, wanting a personal analysis with the main objective of knowing if psychology would be the right path to follow. If you haven’t read the text yet, you can read it here – Why study Psychology

So, as I received several emails from people interested in knowing if their profile was suitable, I decided to write a series of texts about the professional choice, not only in psychology (and related areas) but also in several faculties. In this first text, we’re going to give you some basic tips for choosing the right college and profession!

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We all have personal traits that make us unique. At most, we can say that we are similar to some people who have similar characteristics. These personality characteristics constitute what we call Professional Profile. Each professional area and, of course, each faculty will have a more or less standard profile. I’ll give an example to make it clear.

When I worked with Human Resources, the area of ​​psychology that works with companies, in Training, Personnel Recruitment, Personnel Selection, I did the work of choosing candidates for small, medium and large companies. When a vacancy arose, the company asked us to choose candidates with education and a professional profile to fill its staff.

On the same day, I selected, for example, a vacancy for an external salesperson and a vacancy for an accountant.

The seller profile is extroverted, hyper communicative, open, expansive, while the accountant profile is, in general, the opposite. As the accounting activity is generally technical, inside an office, dealing with calculations and data, people who go to college or take a technical accounting course are more reserved, introverted, quiet, quiet.

In this example, we can see that different jobs require different profiles. An external seller cannot perform well the activities of an accountant (if he only performs technical activities that are not related to external audits) and the opposite is also true.

The first tip is to know your strengths, to know yourself, so that you know right away that certain activities are for you, and other activities are not. Of course we can learn and behave as a job requires. However, in the long term we were unable to sustain it and ended up giving up the job, which was a waste of time for the employee and the company.

The choice of faculty also follows the same principle. If I’m comfortable with the exact sciences, I probably won’t be able to dedicate myself to studying other areas, such as humanities or biology. I may even be able to study for a while, but spending 4, 5 years studying uninteresting subjects is frustrating and, in the end, a waste of time and money.

Tip 2) Know the desired area

If the first tip says to get to know each other, the second says to get to know the area we are interested in. Many choose college and career based on unrealistic expectations. Studying journalism because “a journalist travels a lot” or studying psychology “because I’m a good listener” may even be hopes and ways of considering the profession that may be relevant. After all, a journalist can really travel the world for his profession and a psychologist can work in the clinic and spend the day listening and talking with his patients.

However, it is necessary to know in depth, to know deeply, in all the details, the following points

a) what subjects are studied in college or technical course

b) what are the possible professional activities that can be performed after graduation

For example, a psychologist can work in companies (very close to Business Administration) not being limited to the office. He can work in schools, hospitals, forum, teach, etc.

A journalist can work at home, or else specialize in very specific areas such as economics, sports, etc. or work in written newspapers, radio, TV.

The important thing about this tip, then, is to know that there are job possibilities that are not well known and that may be exactly what we are looking for.

Tip 3) Talk to professionals already trained and working

This tip joins the previous two. If you’ve already surveyed your strengths, your personality characteristics, and combined all this information with the desired profession, now it’s time to talk to people who have already taken the path you want to take in the future.

In this way, illusions about the profession are dispelled, other ideas arise, shorter paths, opportunities in certain unexplored areas appear and thus, we can finally discover that that desired area is or is not for us.

but talk to many professionals. Talking to just one is no use. The risk would be to find someone disillusioned and who ended up being disappointed. This could frustrate us in a negative way, showing a reality that is not always the reality of other people.

Therefore, it is highly recommended to talk to professionals – successful and unsuccessful – as well as professionals who specialize in different jobs.

Tip 4) Get Professional Guidance

When I had to choose which college to do, I was in doubt. I would like to study all the humanities like letters, philosophy, history, pedagogy… I researched all of them but even so, alone, I wasn’t able to focus on just one. The way was to do Professional Guidance.

Professional Guidance, with a psychologist, helps us to go through these points we talk about in the text, helps to know our strengths – through specific psychology techniques – as well as helps in research, in the search for information about each possibility.

In general, 10 to 12 sessions are performed. However, sometimes it happens that they are carried out more or much less. In my selection process, just a single session was enough, as the psychologist asked the right question that led me to choose psychology. Of course, this is not always the case, and depending on the individual, up to 20 sessions can be performed.

Currently, it is possible for everyone to take Professional Guidance in the offices of psychologists who are registered with the Federal Council of Psychology and professionals who have a website and the Accreditation Seal. That is, it is possible to do Professional Guidance Online, without leaving home.

Find out more details – Online Professional Guidance

Whether in person or online, I recommend you do it – if you still have questions. Taking Career Guidance will save you time and money, as if you make the right choice from the beginning, you won’t have to start a path and then choose again.

Any questions, leave a reply below!

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