One of the fallacies of graduating students who are entering the workforce is their focus on monetary remuneration. Financial rewards are among the few primary factors that students are looking for upon graduation in recent years. This is also the reason why the banking and financial sectors are seeing an increasing number of job applications, a trend not often observed in technical industries such as engineering. While monetary remuneration is important to any job candidates, it is also crucial to note that pay is ultimately an extrinsic, motivating factor. And in the long run, it’s often the intrinsic, motivating factors that will enable employees to perform at their best.

 Before we delve into what these intrinsic, motivating factors are, let’s have a look at another fallacy of students, which is their focus on market expectations. Some students have the tendency to select their field of studies based on market demands. Such students will ask their friends about job market developments or check the newspapers for the latest employment trends. Once they have spotted the industries that have good prospects and are currently hiring people, they will send their job applications in the hope that they can join the rest in the industries to reap the benefits available. While this is a fine strategy, the good times often do not last.

 One example will be the Information Technology (IT) industry that experienced the “Dot Com Bust” sometime around 1995 and 2000, resulting in severe recession in various countries.  The IT industry was adversely affected and the hopes of these students who hoped to excel in this booming industry were destroyed. The “Dot Com Bust” incident thus provides the valuable lesson that students should not join a particular industry due to market demands.

 If monetary remuneration and market demands are not the answer to securing a student’s career, what are the determining factors then? The answer lies in the intrinsic, motivating factors, and the most important factor among these is the students’ interests and strengths in their field of studies. Only when the students’ interests and strengths in their field of studies are aligned with their career goals will students excel in the workplace. It is crucial therefore that the students consider the following:

 Which aspects of your field of study are you interested in?  With regard to your interests, can you identify your strengths in them?

 Within a specific industry, there are many professions available. For example, when it comes to graduates of mass communications, there are job opportunities for writers, editors, public relations practitioners, copywriters and journalists. With regard to your strengths in your field of study as mentioned above, can you identify the professions that you wish to join and that you are able to contribute based on your strengths?

 Once you have identified these professions, do a check on the job scope. Based on your findings, is this what you want for a career? If career progression is important to you, do a research on the career path that is available as well.

 It is also useful to have some feedback from people in the professions that you are interested in. You can try to contact the various working professionals and enquiry about their experiences in these professions. You might get some interesting insights.

 when students have done the abovementioned activities and established a link between their strengths in their field of studies with their preferred professions should they pursue the professions in their related industries.  There is a reason behind this. Students are often unaware of the fact that sometimes, the career that they want to pursue may not be the career where they can fully utilise their strengths. Conversely, their strengths may not be relevant to the career that they want to pursue. When this happens, there is a mismatch between their strengths and career aspirations. This often results in confusion and frustration among students since they cannot excel in their chosen professions as these professions require a set of different skills that the students are not proficient in. Regrettably, students are often not aware of this and many have chosen the wrong career as a result.

 It is important for students to note that monetary remuneration often changes according to the conditions of the economy and market demands vary accordingly to the developments of external events, both of which are not within the control of the students. However, they are able to align their personal interests and strengths with their career preference to plan for a lifelong career.
 
 Although there’s been an observation in recent years that students may change several jobs in their lifetime, it’s important that they have a good assessment of their strengths and abilities, as well as where they can better employ their talents.  Having knowledge of this will not only help the students make a smoother transition between organisations, it will also aid them should they decide to make a career switch from one industry to another.

 Taking steps to know and develop one’s strengths over time is an endeavour that all students should pursue over a lifetime, as it is often that one succeeds in life because of the contributions made based on one’s strengths.