Before and throughout university, students looking for career advice can often find themself hearing one idea echoed more than most, that of following one's passion, or doing what you love for a living. For some people, this may make perfect sense, but not everybody has a keen interest in things which are directly transferable to a particular graduate job. Nor should this be considered a bad thing.
Instead, it has recently been argued, thinking about your future career in these terms can make the process a rigid one and hinder the opportunities that a job search presents. Too sharp a focus on one particular area, no matter how passionate you may be about it, can potentially lead to the oversight of jobs that would be a better fit elsewhere. Often, these are not those which people have deliberately set about getting; by leaving their mind open to new options, they have found something that they did not perhaps anticipate enjoying. Such serendipitous discoveries are perfectly understandable - not everyone has a fully-formed idea of where they stand in the world in their early twenties that will carry them through the rest of their life.
Per this alternate approach to a broader job search, different aspects of a particular career are emphasised alongside a definite "passion" for the overall idea of it. Central to this is a focus upon the specific skills a job requires and how these match up to those which a graduate enjoys, and is, ideally, good at. Furthermore, with the job market now changing more rapidly than ever, an ideal area will be one with a clear long-term future in which there will be continued demand. From this perspective, personal fulfilment is still a crucial part of any potential career - but by broadening the idea of how this can be achieved, it may present itself through an avenue that never seemed possible.
