There are hundreds of career options out there. How do you make a career choice when you don't really know what you want to do? Does it seem like an insurmountable task? It's not. Yes, you will have to put some time and energy into making your decision, but your effort will be well worth it in the end. Follow these steps to making a good career choice.

　　职业的类型成千上万，那么怎么才能在自己毫无头绪的时候做出合适的选择呢?这似乎是一个不可能的任务，实际上却不然。没错，你的确需要花费一定的时间和精力做出选择，但是你的努力并不会白费。想要做出合适的职业选择，就跟随下面这些步骤吧。

　　Assess Yourself

　　评估自己

　　Before you can make the right career choice you have to learn about yourself. Your values, interests and skills, in combination with certain personality traits, will make some careers especially suitable for you and others particularly inappropriate. You can use self assessment tools, often called career tests, to gather information about your traits and, subsequently, to generate a list of occupations that are a good fit based on them. Some people choose to have career counselors or other career development professionals administer these tests but many opt to use free career tests that are available on the Web.

　　在做出正确的职业选择之前，你必须清楚了解自己。无论是价值观，兴趣还是技能，甚至某些个人性格的特质，都会影响你对某些职业的适应性。你可以使用自我评估工具，一般是职业测评，以获取个人特质相关的信息，以及你也能够根据这些性格特点得出一份很好的职业选择名单。有些人会选择寻求职业咨询师或其他职业发展专业人士监控这些测试，而有些人则会在网络上进行免费的职业测试。

　　Make a List of Occupations to Explore

　　列出名单，深入探索

　　Look over the lists of occupations generated through your use of the self assessment tools. They are probably rather lengthy. You want to come up with a much shorter list, consisting of between five and ten occupations. Circle occupations that appear on multiple lists. Circle occupations you may have considered previously and that you find appealing. Write these occupations down on a separate list titled "Occupations to Explore."

　　仔细浏览那一份从职业测评得出的职业选择名单。也许有很多职业供你选择，你必须把它缩减成一份简短的名单，一般限制在5到10个左右。把相同的职业名称圈出来，也把你曾经考虑过并认为感兴趣的圈出来。把这些名字写在另外一个名为“有待探索”的名单里。

　　Explore the Occupations on Your List

　　深入探索

　　Now you need to learn about each of the occupations on your list. For each one, you will want to look at the job description,educational and other requirements, job outlook, advancement opportunities and earnings. You can now begin to eliminate those careers that you are no longer interested in based on what you now know.

　　接下来你便需要对名单上的职业进行探索了解了。无论是哪一个职业，你都需要去了解它的职位描述，教育和其他要求，职业前景，上升空间以及薪水程度。通过对它们的了解后，就把你不再感兴趣的职业划掉。

　　Continue Narrowing Down your List

　　继续缩减名单

　　Pare down your list of possible occupations based on what you learned from your research. For example, you may not be willing to put the time and energy into preparing for an occupation for which an advanced degree is required, or you may consider the earnings for a particular occupation inadequate.

　　根据个人的资料收集，继续把职业名单缩减下来。例如，也许你并不想把时间和精力花费在一个需要高等学历的职位上，又或者你觉得某一个职位的薪酬水平并不符合自己的预期，那么你就可以把这些职位删除掉。

　　Conduct Informational Interviews

　　信息会面

　　At this point you should only have a few occupations left on your list (two to four). You now have to gather more in-depth information. Your best source of it are people who have firsthand knowledge of the occupations in which you are interested. Identify who they are and conduct informational interviews with them.

　　到了这一步你的名单也就剩下几个职位选择了(2个到4个左右)。那么你就需要在挖掘更深一层的信息。最佳的信息收集方法就是从拥有第一手资料的那些人着手。看看哪些人对这个行业很熟悉并与他们安排会面。

　　Set Your Goals

　　设定目标

　　By now you should have decided on one occupation you want to pursue. It's time to put a plan into place so you can eventuallyfind a job in that field, but first you will need to set some goals.

　　到了这一步你就需要决定自己该选择哪一份职业了。也是时候好好计划，为自己获得相关职位而做准备，不过首先还得设定一些职业目标。

　　Write a Career Action Plan

　　撰写职业计划

　　Now that you have set your goals, you will need to decide how to reach them. Acareer action plan will help guide you as you pursue your long and short term goals.

　　既然目标已经设定了，那就要明确如何去实现它们。职业发展行动计划能够指导你实现长期和短期的职业目标。

　　Train for Your New Career

　　为新工作练兵

　　It is likely you will have to train for your new career. That could take the form of going to college or graduate school to earn a degree, doing an internship or taking courses to learn some new skills.

　　新的工作通常都需要对员工进行培训。也许需要你获得一个大学生或研究生的学位，或者完成实习工作，又或者是通过完成一些课程获得一些新技能。

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（责任编辑：何莹莹）