2016 Essay Competition - View all entries

If You Love Your Job

Gerald Vandebruinhorst - Picture Butte, AB, Canada

"If you love your job, you'll never have to work", is a popular expression that is often used when giving career advice. It emphasizes how crucial it is to select a career with great care, as you will be spending an extremely large portion of your life in this environment. Recent statistics state that only 13% of employees enjoy their jobs. This is quite shocking and this is the reason I went through a long self-discovery process to find a fitting career that will keep me inspired and motivated for many years to come. The main factors I considered when making this selection were my passions, my ability, and job availability.

We are constantly encouraged to follow our passions and then align it with a career. This is a huge task that requires the process of self-discovery. Although this is another entire topic on its own, it involves finding ourselves. Only once we have identified our goals in life, our interests, our personality type, and a whole host of other characteristics about ourselves, can we make an informed decision on our future. High school is an extremely good exercise in this sense, since we make relationships with others, and go through experiences which help us discover our interests. If our interests are mingled into our career we eliminate the chance for boredom and lack of motivation. However, although we might really enjoy a career, and have a strong interest in a certain subject, we must also be blessed with the talents to perform it.

Ability is a second crucial factor in picking a career. Since this is a restricting factor for many, it can also be very helpful, in eliminating potential options, and narrowing down our search. If you are very talented and capable of achieving high grades, it would be a shame to settle for lower standards. On the other hand, if you are not academically intelligent, maybe you should consider a trade or other career involving less intellectual strength. Everyone has their strengths and weakness, and in the scenario of finding a job, our strengths should be exploited, and our weaknesses minimized. This is also the reason why many career determining tests include previous experience in certain fields. If you have transferable skills that can be used in another career they should be expended.

The fact that it is extremely difficult to find a job after one has completed education, is another factor that is crucial in deciding which path we will go down. Career websites often include the expected job growth in a job profile; colleges and universities provide the expected employment rate after graduation. These are all provided to help assure the job seeker they will actually be able to find a viable option after education in terms of bringing in money. Local industry often plays a determining role in this category, since very few people intend to move around the world to find employment.

Although there are many other factors involved in making this decision, these three effectively summarize the vast majority. I believe that if one discovers their passion, and then matches a career with it, taking into account ability, and job availability, one has an extremely good chance of getting as it were a personalized career to fit your interests.