Career planning
- Not sure which way your career is heading?
- Want some help moving up the career ladder?
- Feel stuck in a rut and looking for a new challenge?
If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, please read on…
If you want to take control of your future, there are some simple steps you can take that will enable you move forward with more clearly defined goals and a realistic means of getting there.
Step 1: Where are you now?
A crucial starting point is to be very open and honest with yourself and assess where you are in your career at this point in time. Take some time out to jot down some thoughts:
- What things make you tick?
- What do you enjoy doing?
- What are you good/bad at?
- What is important to you?
It is worth being thorough here, as it will provide solid foundations to build on and give you the opportunity to understand what actions need to be taken for you to get that dream job!
You may find that you naturally start developing thoughts about some possible career choices, but if this doesn’t happen, don’t panic. There are some useful online tools that may well help, providing a quick, fun and easy way of matching up your personality traits/skills with those needed for specific jobs:
Step 2: Where do you want to get to?
With a few career ideas in mind you can move easily onto Step 2. This part of the process is all about drilling down into more detail about those careers – looking at all the good and bad parts of your new possible job. It is all about providing you with as much information as possible to make an informed choice, as to whether this will or won’t be the right direction for you.
There are lots of resources you can access that will help fill in all the details you need. Here are just a few ideas (this is not an exhaustive list):
- Hobsons – advice by graduate career area
- Identify a few key firms in your chosen sector and take a look at the type of vacancies they have on offer, what type of training and development options they provide, what are the entry qualifications, what are the salary levels/benefits packages, what are the opportunities for career progression?
- Consider going along to Careers Fairs and speak to the companies face to face, you will get a good idea of the sort of people they are looking to employ
- Trade Fairs will give you a good feel for an industry, as well as providing an opportunity to start networking and making contacts
- If you are considering undertaking a course with BU, you would be eligible for a meeting with an Adviser from our Graduate Employment Service, who can provide the relevant help and advice needed
- AGCAS products – a series of publications researched and written by professional careers advisers.
Step 3: How will you get there?
By now you will have a more informed and clear picture of the job/industry sector you want to work in, enabling you to concentrate all of your efforts on working towards that career goal. The information you will have gathered will hopefully illustrate the steps you need to take to realise your career aspirations, whether that maybe further study or gaining work/relevant experience.
The vast range of career options on offer do limit the amount of advice that can be given here, but we hope the following pointers will be of use:
- Many qualifications can now be obtained by studying part-time or via distance learning, meaning that you would not have to give up your current job to study full-time
- A full degree course or formal qualifications may not be necessary to start with – consider Adult Education or a local colleges evening classes to help you gain a greater insight into a subject/work area
- A range of funding options are available to help you with any further study.
- In some careers, previous work experience is highly valued, See if you can gain some experience by volunteer work or maybe work-shadowing someone who currently works in that industry
- Don’t underestimate the value of networking. According to data from the Office of National Statistics, 12% of jobs are filled by speculative applications and 30% through word of mouth/networking, with just 25% filled through job adverts.
Good luck and happy career planning!