It’s never too late to find a job you really like doing, says Molly Selvin

If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to find a better job — or just find a job — you have lots of company right now. January is historically a peak hiring month. Many businesses operate on a calendar year budgeting cycle, so now they have money to fill vacancies or expand.

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Now could also be the time to land your dream job. But first you have to know where to look and what to look for.

Is that too obvious? Job-finding experts say it isn’t.

“There’s a huge disconnect in society when it comes to thinking about careers,” says Elliott Brown, founder of Springboard Forward, a Belmont, California, nonprofit that provides career-planning services to low-income workers. “Our parents were told that you went to school and then you made a career choice,” he says. And for generations a worker could expect to be hired and retired by the same employer.

But the economy has changed. Today, someone will go job hunting at least eight times in his or her life, writes Richard Bolles in his classic career-seekers guide, What Color is Your Parachute?

The disconnect is that many people don’t understand or don’t want to believe that. The truth is that it’s not only a good idea to periodically re-assess your skills, interests and goals, but it’s also imperative to stay marketable. You should think of your career-search process as a long-term journey, Brown advises, with sojourns along the way.

How to discover a passion that pays? Read on for tips.

What to do first
There’s little mystery here, experts agree. You have to be honest with yourself — about your skills, what you like to do and what you don’t like to do. Susan W. Miller, founder of California Career Services, asks employed clients a seemingly simple question: When you’re having a good day at work, what exactly are you doing?

She follows up with: Among all the things that you do every day at work, what do you do best?

Take this test
Interview people who know you well. They can help sort out what truly engages you and what turns you off. They may have insights about vocations you never imagined and could remind you of important truths about yourself. If you struggle with percentages or the concept of compound interest flummoxes you, a career in finance is probably not your best bet no matter how passionate you are about making a lot of money.

Investigate jobs you think would suit you. Don’t just imagine that you would enjoy being a paralegal; talk to one.

Intern or volunteer to test your conclusions. Internships aren’t only for young people. If those positions aren’t available, companies are sometimes happy to take on unpaid workers for special assignments. Or a paralegal might let you shadow her for a day.

This can help validate your research and give you experience and contacts to “pivot into a new occupation”, says Mark Oldman, co-founder of Vault, a business information firm.

He recalls a banker who dreamt of a radio career, interned as a disc jockey and loved it so much that she quit banking for a full-time job on the air. Perhaps the most important tip of all: Set realistic expectations. Finding the career path that’s right for you could easily take six months.

Books that help
Bookstores stock shelves of career-planning volumes and new ones come out all the time.

What Color is Your Parachute? published in 1970, remains a bestseller, and author Bolles has spun off other titles aimed at teens and retirees.

Other sellers include The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Changing Careers, The Vault Guide to Schmoozing, Why You Can’t Be Anything You Want to Be and Passion and Purpose: How to Identify and Leverage the Powerful Patterns that Shape Your Work / Life.

There are guides for young adults, mid-career workers, women and workers with disabilities, for people interested in health care, event planning or finance, for fashionistas, bookworms, film buffs or people who care about the environment. There are volumes for English majors, sociology majors, math geeks and on and on.

Should you read all of them? Or any of them?
Don’t feel overwhelmed. The best advice is to browse and pick and choose. When you’re on the road to self-discovery, detours can be valuable — and free of charge with a library card.

Many of the books include exercises designed to tease out your strongest interests, like these from What Color is Your Parachute?

Draw a picture of your ideal life. With coloured pencils on a big sheet of white paper, sketch pictures or symbols to depict where you want to live and with whom, what your house or apartment would look like, and so on.

“The power of this exercise is sometimes amazing,” Bolles writes, because it forces you to think more creatively.

Think of everyone you know, have seen on television or have read about, and ask whose job would you most like to have? You might surprise yourself.

Websites that help
You don’t have to look hard to find career help on the Net.

Many authors operate companion sites for their books with tests, checklists, diagrams and links to courses and resources to help you find your path.

“I became enormously frustrated that people live paycheck to paycheck with no passion,” says Nicholas Aretakis, who wrote No More Ramen and runs nomoreramenonline.com. He calls it “the twentysomethings real world survival guide”.

Cued to young people struggling to “find themselves” as they leave college or their parent’s orbit, the website is sprinkled with anecdotes, to do lists and advice, including the pros and cons of grad school and how to become a Supreme Court justice.

“If you were a jock in college,” Aretakis says, “you may not make the PGA or the LPGA, but you could market yourself to sports-apparel companies”.

Along the same lines, job search sites such as www.monster.com and www.careerbuilder.com offer free assessment tests, articles on careers, research on hot jobs and bits and pieces about job training.

The My Interest Finder quiz on the californiacolleges.edu site asks you to rate how much you would enjoy conducting a symphony or performing hospital nursing duties or mapping the ocean floor. Other exams assess values important to you and match them with possible careers.

But if you’re honest with yourself and pay attention, you can learn something from almost any self-examination no matter how silly the questions might seem.

Consider these examples from the Princeton Review:

I would rather be a wildlife expert, or I would rather be a public-relations expert.

I would rather be a company controller, or I would rather be a TV anchor.

I would rather be an auditor, or I would rather be a musician.

Counsellors
Forget your high-school guidance counsellor; career advisers have gone upscale.

Private counsellors, who work out personalised plans for each seeker, may charge hourly fees of up to $200. Their services can include assessment tests, job market research, resume help and coaching sessions to calm interview jitters. Many nonprofit counselling agencies charge less than private firms.

The career centres at virtually every college and university are gold mines for befuddled students and alumni.

“You have no idea how many lawyers I see walk in my door saying, ‘I’m done’,” says counsellor Deborah Campbell at Los Angeles Trade Technical College. Ditto for burnt-out nurses.

Like many counsellors, Campbell asks the people who come to her: What do you like to do in your spare time? What was your favourite class in school?

At Springboard Forward nonprofit counsellors, clients attend workshops to create career maps. These don’t necessarily include a destination, but they have what Brown calls “the components” — skills, interests, dreams — of what he reminds clients is going to be quite a trip.

“I tell people to relax,” Brown says. “It’s going to be a long journey.”

Sources:LOS ANGELES TIMES