Your professional vocation: what do you want to do for a living?

Finding your professional vocation is not always easy, because many people are unable to identify what they are passionate about. However, it will be necessary so that, later on, you can dedicate yourself to what you are passionate about and not to what you have to do.

Remember that if you dedicate yourself to what you are passionate about, you will never have to work a day in your life. So, here are the right questions to ask yourself to discover your professional vocation.

Am I interested in studying a career?

This is the first question you should ask yourself to find your professional vocation: do you see yourself studying a university degree? If the answer is yes, then which one?

It is not easy to answer this question, but what you should do is to analyse what kind of job or profession would make you happy. However, in case you have never had a professional experience, do some research on the ones you are most interested in and visualise yourself in that job.

Remember that some careers are longer than others and you should analyse whether you will be able to endure the length of the career you are interested in. Also, take into account whether you have the skills and aptitudes to study that career. Or if you are interested in dedicating yourself to refining your skills to be the best in that field. If so, that will be your ideal career.

Can I imagine myself working in it in the future?

Many professionals finish their careers, but never go on to pursue them. This happens because, in reality, these professionals never felt passionate about studying this career and graduated, but never felt interested in practising. How unfortunate it would be if that happened to you!

To avoid this, before you proceed to enrol in the faculty, you need to visualise yourself if you really want to practice this career in the future. However, you should be careful not to idealise it, i.e. visualise yourself doing what you think the career is about, when the reality is different.

A good tip for finding your professional vocation is that in order to visualise yourself in the future with a career. You should do some research on what professionals who have already graduated do in the exercise of their functions. In this way, you will be able to determine whether you want to do the same as them in the future.

Which universities or colleges offer what I want to study?

This is another important factor, as many career aspirants become disappointed when they realise that there are no universities near them that offer the careers they are interested in. Therefore, a good option is to anticipate this by making a list of the universities near you and the courses they offer.

In this way, you will be able to evaluate which of these careers catch your attention or excite you. You can also do it the other way around. By writing a list of the degrees you are interested in studying in order of priority and determining which universities offer them and which of them you can attend. This last method is aimed at those who have no problem with distance and are able to pay for residences to study a degree in another city.

Talk to professionals in the field

As explained above, it is not advisable to study a career without having any knowledge about it. In this sense, the people who can give you accurate and first-hand information about the career you are interested in are the professionals in that area.

For this reason, it is advisable that you opt at least for an interview with several professionals in the career you are interested in. So that they can explain to you exactly what they do and their experiences with the career. This way, you will know if you really share the same passion as them for studying this career.

Study the supply and demand in the sector

This is another very important aspect, as nobody wants to study a career that has no labour demand, or whose offer is too large. Therefore, it is advisable to study beforehand the supply and demand of that career in the labour market.

To do this, you can search on platforms such as LinkedIn or local job offers for the demand for this career. It is also a good idea to determine in which cities the career is available.