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Choosing a Business Field

Explore fields of business and learn which is best for your life and goals

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Business Fields

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A field is a focus in your education and work that corresponds to a larger business industry. Sometimes also referred to as a specialty, the field is the umbrella that holds several specific careers together—accounting, for example, is the field that contains public accountants, auditors, forensic accountants, as well as the degrees needed to reach these positions. Choosing a field is the essential step that comes before choosing a career, and often before choosing a degree.

So how do you go about figuring out the field in which you'd like to work? Unlike the process of considering specific careers, when you think about your field, you should think abstractly about your unique strengths, passions, abilities and style. What do you most enjoy doing? What are you best at? How do these activities or elements transfer into other areas of your life?

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In his book, What Color is My Parachute, Richard Nelson-Bolles says that it's important to take your abstract interests and desires and turn those concepts into a prioritized list of transferable skills, or, in other words, the skills that will be directly useful in most any career. Bolles gives the examples of "problem solving" or "being able to guide a group discussion," and explains that you should prioritize this list based on which skills you most enjoy using. Next, create a separate list of those industries and issues that most interest you. The end goal should be a combination of what you love with what you do well.

The key is realizing that sometimes things fit together in a different way than you first assume. Obviously, certain interests—like chatting with your friends all day—are not going to fit well into any business industry; no job is going to want you gossiping on the phone when you're supposed to be working. But what is it about chatting with your friends that you so enjoy? Is it interacting with people? Hearing their stories? Giving advice? Solving problems? Identified in this more abstract way, it seems that your propensity for socializing could be transferred into a successful career in human resources.

Don't Know What You Want?

What do you do if you don't know what transferable skills you have and/or you don't know where your passion lies? It's a very common problem. This kind of introspection can clearly be difficult, but try this mental exercise: think about what you most enjoy doing in general and try to figure out which elements are constants throughout all or many of these things. Once you have identified certain high-level concepts that consistently pique your interest—working with numbers, thinking analytically, understanding people, etc—begin investigating different business fields and try to see where you would best fit.

You may also want to take some time to reflect on your past, since what has historically made you happy will most likely make you happy in the future. Pay special attention to those events when time seemed to pass especially quickly. This is called a flow state, and it marks durations of heightened concentration and happiness. You can also ask close friends, family and colleagues for their honest views on your skills and passions. We often are better able to accurately observe those around us—and vice versa—than ourselves.

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