How does one decide one’s career? How does one decide and take a decision that may shape the life excellently or doom it forever? It is not as if nobody has the right or opportunity to choose their own vocations. Circumstances decide the way things will go. But it is true that many people when asked, will say that they would prefer a different job or career of their own taste and liking.

Most people now have a formal education before they step in the real world where each one is to his own. Careers start at a very junior level. There are very few people who actually start at the top. They either inherit or are extremely brilliant. You may consider artists. Art is considered by most of us as a hobby. Very few venture from the beginning to become artists for a living, since it is well known that an artist might take years before his work is recognized and gets some value. Till then they are non-entities and have to depend on some other vocation for their living.

May times careers are decided by an individuals belief in his/her capability. Bill Gates left Harvard to co-found Microsoft.  If he had continued at Harvard, he might not have reached where he is today. He might have gone the conventional way of taking up the best job offering a good salary. Instead he pursued his natural talent in software. I needn’t talk further about him. People actually take up jobs and see how they cope up with the same. It has been seen in many cases, where executives keep on flitting between different jobs and departments and ultimately take up something else which is very
different from what they started with. Its this experimentation which helps them discover their natural talent. People learn about their own temperament with experience. They slowly move towards their goal. Very few are able to transform their avocations into their vocations.

People with determination try and succeed wonderfully in their own interest and work. Kalpana Chawla, the astronaut on the ill fated Columbia, nursed a wish to fly into space and become an astronaut. Scientists like Einstein, Edison with their independent thinking and research reached a position which is unrivaled. Abraham Lincoln chose politics and social work as his line and after numerous failures, became one of the most revered Presidents of the US. Gandhi and Martin Luther King chose the path of social change. They pursued their hearts and achieved their goals.

The opportunity for pursuing one’s natural talent always exists. Its how one recognizes the same and then pursues the instinct that decides one’s fate.

Many people view the reward for work as being a huge big salary and lots of benefits. But there are other ways of looking at work as well and these should not be underestimated. Job satisfaction can be worth a lot of money. This is often the main reason people employed in the voluntary, or non-profit making sector cite as the principal reason that they work in the sector. They enjoy making a difference to other people’s lives, the environment or simply having fun, working with children, disabled people etc. For them the satisfaction is not in terms of financial reward but in changing things for the better and that is often ‘priceless’ and something that money really cannot buy.

Many people like to undertake a new career in the voluntary/not for profit sectors because they have decided that they want their career to mean something and so even late on in life, many people embark on a career change whereby they leave the world of business and instead embark on a career where money is not the driving force and instead work for a charity. Age or experience need not be a barrier: what employers are looking for is drive, passion and a willingness to make a difference, in whatever way possible.

There are various different ways in which you can try working in the voluntary/not for profit sectors. A good way to test (without commitment) is to enrol with a recruitment agency and start getting some practical experience. This should help you to be able to find out what client group or ‘cause’ you wish to work for. You will however, for some jobs, be required to undertake a Criminal Records Bureau check, just to ensure that you are free from a criminal record. But once this has been undertaken you are then start to finding out just how rewarding job satisfaction can be.