Welcome to the Listening Time podcast. Hey everybody, this is Conner, and you’re listening to Episode 60 of the Listening Time podcast.

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Alright, in today’s episode, we’re going to talk about choosing a career. This is an important topic because a lot of us have to make this important decision at some point in our lives. So, I thought it would be a good topic to talk about on an episode. So, we’ll talk about that today.

And before we get started, remember that if you need the transcript for this episode, you can find that below this episode in the Episode Description. So, click on that if you need it. Also, remember to share this podcast with anyone else who might find it useful, anyone else who’s learning English that you know. And also, remember to give this episode a rating, give it a five-star rating and give it a review if you can. This really helps the podcast grow and helps more people discover it. So, make sure to do that if you’re listening on Spotify or on Apple Podcasts, and that really helps me out. Okay, let’s get started.

Okay, so let’s talk about choosing a career. So, first of all, let’s talk about the importance of this decision. So, it’s very important to choose the right career because it’s going to define your path. In English, when we say “define your path,” this means that it’s going to determine where you’re going to go, in what direction you’re going to go. The word “path” refers to some trail or way that you take, where you walk, and you go in a certain direction. So, choosing your career defines your path for the future.

Of course, it doesn’t define everything. It doesn’t define your whole life, of course, but it pushes you in a certain direction, and it’s going to influence your future. Obviously, this can change. You can change your career. You can stop doing one thing and start doing another thing. Of course, you can always change your career, but it’s important to try to get the right start, to try to make the right decision at the beginning. So, it’s really important to choose the right career because it’s going to define your path. And of course, it’s going to determine what university you go to or what program you do to get trained. And it’s going to determine what decision you’re going to make when you have to decide how you’re going to get educated or trained to do that job. So, that can really affect your life in that way.

And of course, it’s important because it’s going to affect how many job opportunities you have. If you choose a certain career path, then this might open the door to many opportunities. In English, when we use the phrase “open the door” to something or “that opens many doors for you,” for example, it’s talking about opportunities. It’s talking about options that you have. So, depending on which career you choose, it might open more doors or it might open fewer doors for you. So, that’s another important reason to choose the right career.

And lastly, choosing the right career can affect your level of happiness. If you choose a career that you end up not liking at all, you might not be happy. In English, when we use the phrase “end up” doing something, this means that in the end, after everything happens, this is the result. So, for example, if I say “We were planning on doing a lot of things yesterday, and we wanted to go to many places, but we ended up staying home and doing nothing.” This means that after all that we planned and everything that we talked about, in the end, we didn’t do anything. So, that’s the phrase “end up.” So, if you don’t choose a career that you like, you might end up being unhappy.

Alright, so now, let’s talk about the different criteria that you can use to choose a career. The word “criteria” refers to the different points or factors that play a role in deciding something. Okay? So, when you choose the criteria for a decision you’re going to make, you’re choosing the different things that your choice needs to fulfill. For example, if I want to hire an employee for my company, I have certain criteria that the employee needs to meet. So, for example, my employee needs to be 18 years old, they need to have graduated high school, they need to have some experience in the field. These are different criteria that I’m using to choose an employee.

So, let’s talk about the different criteria that you might use when choosing a career. So, first of all, one of the most important criteria is salary. Obviously, we want to choose a job that we really like. We want to choose a career that we’re interested in. But if that career isn’t going to make us any money, then we’re probably not going to choose it. So, salary is a big factor when it comes to choosing a career. That phrase that I use a lot: “when it comes to”… this phrase just means when something happens or regarding something. So, when you’re choosing a career, it’s important to consider the salary, or one important factor regarding career choice is the salary. So, when I use the phrase “when it comes to,” this is what I’m saying.

So, when it comes to career choice, salary is important. So, it’s important to determine what type of lifestyle you want. Some people want a more luxurious lifestyle than other people. So, someone who wants a luxurious lifestyle, they need to get paid more, of course. And someone who doesn’t need a lot of luxuries, someone who just wants a modest lifestyle will probably have more career options because they don’t need that big of a salary. So, it’s important to determine what lifestyle you want, personally.

And so for example, if you need a lot of money, if you want a high paying job, there are certain industries that are going to be more attractive for you. For example, medicine… we use the word “medicine” to refer to all the different jobs in the medical field, all the different types of doctors. So, if you want to earn a lot of money in the US, you can become a doctor. If you look up lists of the highest-paying jobs in the US, most of the top jobs are jobs in the medical field: different types of doctors, different types of specialists. So, of course, this is a good field to go into if you want to earn a lot of money.

Also, dentistry is a good field. If you become a dentist, you can also earn a lot of money, and law… if you become a lawyer, you can earn a lot of money as well, and engineering. There are different sub fields of engineering and most of them pay well. In English, when we use the prefix “sub” like a subfield, I’m just saying one field within that bigger field. So, we have the field of engineering and then subfields within that bigger field… so, different types of engineering. And one other good industry that you can go into if you want to earn a lot of money is the IT industry. For example, you can become a programmer.

And in many countries around the world, programmers earn a lot of money compared to the average worker in that country. So, for example, when I talk to my students in different countries, a lot of them are learning programming or they want to switch their career to an IT career because they want to earn more money. And in their country, programming or other IT jobs pay a lot more than the average job in their country. So, salary is a very important criteria to consider when choosing a job when choosing a career.

Next, let’s talk about interest. This is another really important criteria. You want to like what you do. So, if you just want a high salary, if you just want to earn a lot of money, of course, there are different fields that you can consider. But some of those fields are going to be more interesting for you than other fields. So, I think that most people would find themselves unhappy if they have a high paying job, but they hate their job. Right? It’s not all about the salary. You want to have some interest in what you do.

Of course, you don’t need to absolutely love your job and everything that you do. There are plenty of people that earn good money, and they don’t love their job, but they’re okay with their job. And I think that this is fine. You don’t need to absolutely love your work, but you don’t want to be unhappy in your position. So, you want to make sure that you at least, somewhat, like the career that you’ve chosen. In English, when we use the word “somewhat” like this, we’re saying “kind of”, right? If I say he’s “somewhat strange,” I’m saying he’s kind of strange. He’s a little bit strange. So, your career should be somewhat interesting for you.

And another thing to consider when thinking about your interest in a field is if you like the job enough to accept the different challenges that come with it. Every career path, every job has challenges, and so, if you don’t like your job enough, you probably won’t be able to handle the challenges well, but if you really like a job, then the challenges won’t seem that bad. You’ll be able to deal with them better. So, you want to make sure that you like your job enough to deal well with the challenges that arise. In English, the word “arise” just means appear. So, if challenges arise, this means that challenges appear.

And you want to make sure that you have a sense of purpose in your job. You want to feel like you’re actually doing something useful. Many people are unhappy with their jobs be doing something that doesn’t seem to be that important to them. So, it doesn’t feel like their job is really necessary. It doesn’t feel like they’re helping a lot of people or that they’re making a difference in people’s lives. And we want to feel like this. We want to feel like we’re doing something that’s making a difference in the world, and we want to feel that sense of purpose. So, overall, interest is one of the most important criteria when it comes to choosing a career.

Another important one is your personality. So, do you have the right personality to work in a certain field? For example, different industries have very different work environments. In English, the term “work environment” refers to the place where you work, the type of atmosphere that’s there. You might work in teams, you might work alone, it might be a very controlled environment, it might be a very flexible, relaxed environment. So, all of these things contribute to the work environment. Okay? So, you want to make sure that you have the right personality, a personality that matches the work environment that you’re going to be in.

So, for example, if you’re not really good at communicating with other people, and you don’t like socializing a lot, and you’d like to keep to yourself, then you probably don’t want to work in a field that requires you to talk to other people all day. By the way, the phrase “keep to yourself” means that you don’t socialize a lot. You don’t talk to other people a lot. You kind of stay quiet, and you like to be alone and not interact too much. If this is the case, then we can say that you like to keep to yourself. So, if you’d like to keep to yourself, then you probably won’t want a really social job, right? And vice versa: if you’re a really communicative person, if you love socializing, then you probably won’t like a job that requires you to be alone without anyone else around you for many hours. So, that’s important to consider.

Another good criteria to consider when choosing a career is how much demand there is for different fields. So, if you really like one field, and you’re interested in starting a career in that field, but there’s absolutely no demand for workers in that field, you’re going to have a really hard time finding a job. So, this is one thing that you really need to consider because some things that sound really nice, some jobs that seem really appealing, they might be they might not provide you with many opportunities. In English, when we use the word “appealing,” we’re saying that something is attractive. So, if a job is appealing, that means it’s attractive. It seems good to you.

So, for example, in the area of liberal arts, there usually isn’t much demand for workers. The term “liberal arts” refers to a collection of fields that includes things like history, art, literature, things like this. There usually isn’t much demand for workers in these industries. So, if you are a liberal arts major in college, you might need to think hard about what job you’re going to get in the future because there won’t be many positions available in these fields, most likely.

On the other hand, there’s always a ton of demand for skilled labor jobs. “Skilled labor” refers to different jobs like plumbers, carpenters, landscapers, people like that… electricians, jobs like this, where we always need help with these things. We always need more workers in these areas. So, if you choose one of these careers, you’re probably going to have a lot of opportunities, you’re probably not going to have much difficulty finding a job if you want to get into one of these fields. So, certain fields have a lot of demand. Certain fields don’t have a lot of demand.

And certain fields have a lot of competition, like the medical field… a lot of people want to be doctors, and certain fields don’t have a lot of competition because they’re not as attractive of a field and so not many people choose it. But to be honest, these fields might be good choices for you, because there isn’t a lot of competition, and maybe, there’s a lot of demand. So, that’s something to consider.

And lastly, one more criteria that you want to consider is the investment that you’re going to have to make when choosing this industry. So, when I say investment, I’m referring to the money and the time and the energy that you’re going to have to invest in getting trained and in finding a job and and working in that field. So, for example, depending on what career path you choose, you’re going to have to go to school for more years or fewer years, sometimes. If you want to become a doctor, you’re going to spend many more years learning in school than if you choose a different job. So, this means you’re going to have to invest a lot of time, a lot of money, to get trained so that you can become a doctor afterwards.

And you have to decide whether or not this investment is worth it, whether or not you should make this investment, or if you should choose a different career with less of an investment. So, this is a big thing that you have to consider because you don’t want to invest a lot of time and money into one career path, and then you end up not liking this career. That wouldn’t be very good.

Lastly, let me just quickly mention my journey when choosing my career. I first thought that I wanted to get into film. In English, when we say “get into” a subject, it means that we want to enter into this field or we want to learn this thing. So, I thought I wanted to get into film and work in the film industry, but then, I very quickly realized that it wasn’t for me. I didn’t like it. And then, I wanted to be a high school teacher. And then, I very quickly realized that I wasn’t going to do that either. And then, I decided to become an English teacher for foreign English learners. And that’s partly what I do now.

And then, from that, this drove me to become more of an entrepreneur in a sense. And so now, I have this podcast I have my YouTube channel, and I’m trying to reach a bigger audience, and of course, I have my membership, and so, that’s what I’m trying to focus on now. And so, I’ve taken a lot of twists and turns in my career path. This just means that I’ve gone in many directions, and now, I’m trying to be more independent and more of an entrepreneur so that I can reach more people and help more people and have more freedom. So, that’s a little bit about my journey in terms of choosing my career.

Alright, so we’ll stop there for today. Remember that if you need my help with your listening or with your pronunciation, click on the link in the Description below this episode to become a Listening Time Member, Super Member or Family Member, and you’ll get my specialized training to help you understand native speakers when they speak fast. And if you become a Super Member or Family Member, you get my pronunciation seminars, which will help you speak English with proper pronunciation.

And if you become a Listening Time Family Member, you’ll get my advanced podcast episodes, which will help you reach an advanced level of listening. Also, remember that you have the transcript available in the Episode Description. So, click on that if you need it. Alright, thank you for listening to this episode, and I’ll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.