How to choose a career you'll love

Irrespective of the subject you have studied, or what level you are at, this online interactive course will help you to explore what you want from your future working life.

On

Throughout the course you will find a selection of tasks, exercises and quizzes to complete. We suggest you try to do most of them if you can so your vision of the future is well balanced and considered from different angles. As you proceed through the course, the picture of what you want from your future career and life will emerge.

You will be able to download the results from each of the tasks you complete so you can create your ‘personal career portfolio’ as you progress through the course. Although reflection doesn’t necessarily come naturally to everyone, it is an important part of your learning and development so try to factor in some time to review and consider the impact of each exercise or quiz and how it may inform your future choices. By doing all of this, you can place yourself in the centre of your own career and can make choices influenced by a good understanding of what you can do and what you want to achieve.

If you wish to discuss any of your thoughts and ideas further, you can book an appointment with one of the Employability Consultants in the Careers Service.

Getting started

This section will cover:

  • the strategies that others have used in their career planning
  • different approaches for managing career paths so you can create a 'road map' for your own career journey
  • how you can make decisions and be confident that your approach is well informed
Career planning in the 21st century

The world of work is changing. Whereas organisations at one time had clear company hierarchies with well-defined lines of management and career progression structures, this is not necessarily so today. New technologies have changed, or even removed, the need for some job roles and functions. They have also enabled more flexible working practices and opportunities not envisioned just a few years ago. Technological, social, political and economic factors will continue to change the job market you are going to enter.

To cope with these changes you may need to be flexible and creative in your approach to making career choices and take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves.

The following speakers talk you through their own "career journeys" and some of the things that have influenced their choices along the way.

One of the main messages from these stories is that career journeys do not necessarily follow a "linear path" and the choice you make now does not need to be for the rest of your life.

Nevertheless, there are clearly a number of factors along the way that might help you to make better choices, for instance, being aware of your own values and interests as well as learning about career options through contacts and previous experience.

Ultimately, in an ever-changing world of work you will be more likely to achieve career success and satisfaction with a better insight into yourself and your options.

Career planning road map

When it comes to career planning, what can seem a daunting and difficult process can be de-mystified and broken down into a series of smaller manageable tasks.

This process does not have to be the same for everyone. We may all have our own individual style, strategy and approach to planning for the future so here is a card sort that will help you to visualise your route map of the process.

Doing this will help you to create a plan of action and identify steps you can take to clarify career ideas and options. It will also guide you to sections of this online course to get you started.

Click on the link below and download the exercise into your portfolio. Create your own model of the career planning process by arranging the cards in order.Exercise: My model for career planning

Review of task

By completing this task, you will have considered the different steps involved in planning for your future.

You will hopefully have realised the importance of assessing your own skills and interests, priorities and motivations. Thinking about who you are, what you want and what brings you happiness and fulfilment will help you to identify and create the future you will love.

The task will probably have shown the importance of devoting some time to researching your options and gathering up-to-date and reliable information so you can make a good and well informed decision about the future. Finally, don’t forget to allow time for review and reflection so you can adapt your strategy as you learn more about what is important to you.

You can continue the process of ‘self discovery’ to explore your career hopes and wishes in the ‘Who you are’ section of this course; you can also learn more about the options open to you in the ‘Find out more’ section.

The process of planning for the future, does not have to be a difficult or overwhelming job. Break it down into small manageable steps and start to work through them in what seems the best order for you.

Decision-making styles

When it comes to making a decision about the future, it can be helpful to reflect upon decisions you have made in the past and how you made these. There are different approaches to decision-making and evaluating these can help you identify if you have a preferred style and if the style is appropriate for the career decisions you are going to make in the future.

These are a few approaches to making a decision:

Avoidant - puts off decision-making
Compliant - decisions based on what others want
Fatalistic - decisions are left to chance
Impulsive - tends to make snap decisions
Incomplete - decisions based on limited information
Instinctive - decisions based on 'what feels right'
Rational - information is gathered from a range of reliable sources

 

Sarah is a sociology student at the University of Sheffield. Here's an example of her life decisions to date.

Sarah chose to study AS Levels in French, English, Biology as she had got decent grades at GCSE and thought they would leave her options open. Although she hadn’t studied Economics before, she chose the subject as she thought it would be interesting (Incomplete). Within a month of starting Economics, she knew it wasn’t for her. The only alternative option that fitted her timetable was Sociology so she transferred to that (Fatalistic).

She found that she loved Sociology so decided to study that at University. She researched courses, curriculum and syllabus, and attended open days. She compiled a list of factors about each course and University; including the social life, societies, accommodation and library facilities (Rational).

At the end of her first year she joined a summer camp because her current boyfriend suggested going together (Compliant).

At the end of her second year she and a friend decided to buy an inter-rail youth pass and travel round Europe. Although they didn’t plan it, they got as far as Paris and then caught a train leaving for Venice later that day. They had a fantastic time and made some great friends (Impulsive).

So how do you make decisions?

Click on the link below to launch the exercise and reflect on your own experience of making decisions. It should take 3 - 5 minutes to complete.

Interactive exercise: Map your decisions

Review of task

  • What kind of decision-making approaches did you use?
  • How happy were you with the outcome of those decisions?
  • Were the decision-making styles you used appropriate?
  • What have you learned about your 'preferred' decision-making style(s)?
Pros and cons of different decision making styles

If you completed the previous task, you may have identified that you have a preference for using particular styles of decisions. Alternatively, you might have seen that you use a variety of different styles, or rely on a particular decision-making style for different types of decisions that you make. This is perfectly natural.

It is worth noting however, that for each decision-making style, there are associated advantages or disadvantages.

To explore these, try completing the exercise below. Fill in what you think are the associated advantages and disadvantages for each decision-making style. It should take 3 - 5 minutes to complete.

Interactive exercise: Decision making styles

To sum up

Reflecting upon past decisions you have made will help you to assess your own decision making ‘habits’ or preferences - and the impact of these. It’s perfectly natural to use a variety of different styles but being aware of different approaches to decision-making and most importantly selecting appropriate strategies for different types of decisions, will help you to make better life and career choices in future.

Here are a few examples of decisions you may have faced, or may face in future. Which style would you use for each one (Avoidant, Compliant, Fatalistic, Impulsive, Incomplete, Instinctive, Rational)?

  • Buying a house
  • Choosing a life partner
  • Buying a present for a friend
  • Choosing where to go on holiday
  • Moving to a new city
  • Supporting a local sports team
  • Volunteering for a charity
  • Deciding what to have for supper tonight
  • Choosing a job

When making life decisions it is important to have a well-informed approach, to minimise risk and take control over your future. Taking a ‘Rational’ approach can be a more thorough way to consider your future, but combining this alongside other approaches can help you make a well-reasoned, realistic and informed career decision.

Summary

In this section we have covered:

  • The approaches and strategies used in career planning
  • How to be confident in the decision making process

To summarise, our tips for making an important career decision are:

  • Be aware of your preferred decision making style, but balance this with a rational approach
  • Don't try to rush the process since you need time for research and reflection
  • Talk to people about how they've made their own career choices


In the next section 'Who you are', we will help you to find out  about yourself so that you understand more about what you want within your career.

Who you are

This section of the course will help you to find out more about yourself and what is important to you in your working life. To find employment or a lifestyle that you’ll love and find rewarding, you need to understand what is important to you. You also need to consider your skills and strengths, your priorities, and your values and motivations, and how these fit into the future you have in mind. In this section of the course, there are a selection of tasks and exercises which you can choose from. You can do these in whichever order you want, but, completing each section will help you to identify what you want from your working life and career. The more activities you complete, the clearer the picture will be.

Skills

You will have developed many skills through your studies, but you will also have developed others while taking part in extracurricular activities such as sports and societies or through work or volunteering experience.

To identify a job that you’ll love and perform well in, it can be helpful to identify your skills. There may be skills that are particularly important to you or that you find most fulfilling to use. You may want to look for potential work that makes the most of these.

Similarly it can be worth assessing which skills areas you perform less well in or find less enjoyable to use. You may then want to look for jobs where you can avoid or minimise using your weaker skills!

To help you identify some of the skills you use in everyday life, try the interactive exercise below - a day in the life of a student. This should take you 3 - 5 minutes. Which transferable skills can you spot?

Interactive exercise: Skills

Once you have tried this task, think about the skills you have already developed. There may be more than you think!

Transferable Skills

The skills assessment exercise below will help you to reflect on what you're good at as well as recognise areas that you might need or want to develop. Click on the graphic and download the exercise into your portfolio.

Keeping a record of your skills development and examples to demonstrate your areas of strength will help prepare you for articulating your abilities and achievements in preparation for making applications and attending interviews.

Exercise: Skills assessment

Using your subject

Are there certain aspects of your course that you really enjoy and want to pursue further?

All courses at the University of Sheffield impart subject specific knowledge and in the case of more vocationally focused courses, relevant ‘technical’ competence.

In the process of delivering this subject specific knowledge, you will also have developed personal skills which are transferable to a range of career options. These personal transferable skills are covered further in the Skills section of this course but if there are particular, more subject specific aspects of your studies you want to pursue further in the future make a note of them here.

Click on the link to download the 'Wish list exercise' and record any aspects of your course that you would like to pursue further within your career. Try to rank them in order of preference. Finally, save it to your portfolio.

Exercise: Subject specific wish list

If you want to use the specific skills or knowledge that you have gained from your studies in your future career then you’ll find it helpful to refer to the Use your subject section of the Careers Service website.

The Careers Service website lists some career ideas related to your degree subject. It also has some graduate case studies and details of the job titles and organisations Sheffield graduates from your department have pursued. This might help you to generate some new ideas of opportunities open to you.

Interests and passions

In a working lifetime, you can expect to spend approximately 100,000 hours at work.

You may as well spend those hours doing something that you’ll enjoy, that will make you spring out of bed in the morning - or at least not make you want to hide under the covers and bolt the door!

Work doesn’t have to be a chore or necessary evil to weigh you down. Basing your career around the things that you enjoy, that you are truly interested in and that energise and inspire you can turn ‘a job’ into your dream job making your working life enjoyable and fulfilling.

In this section of the course there are some tasks that will help you to identify your interests and passions. You can then see if or how these can inform choices you make about your working life and how you spend those 100,000 hours.

So what are the things, topics or activities that interest, inspire and energise you?

If you can identify these, you can see if or how you can incorporate them into your working life, either by seeing if you can get paid for doing the things you enjoy; working in an organisation whose mission focuses around the things you are interested in... or at least, doing a job that enables you to have the income or lifestyle to pursue your interests outside of work time.

Click on the link to download the exercise and have a go at identifying 20 things that interest or inspire you!

Exercise: Favourite things

On the next section we will see how you can turn your passions into professions.

Turning passions into professions

Having identified your interests, you could try to explore careers that involve them.

  • Can you turn any of these interests into a career?
  • Can you work in an industry associated with these interests?
  • Or in its supply chain?
  • Designing or manufacturing the products, retailing the product, marketing  or financing it?
  • Managing the legal affairs for it?
  • Managing the venue?
  • Writing about it?

Here’s a mind map of one interest, 'Football', exploring associated career options.

Football mindmap

Create your own

Identify one of your main interests that you might like to incorporate into your working life and click on the link below to download a mind mapping exercise into your portfolio. Have a go at mind mapping some potential career ideas. If you feel inspired, repeat the task with other interests.

Exercise: Mind mapping

Hopefully this task will have encouraged you to think about your interests and the things you enjoy.  This can be a useful starting point for identifying careers that give you the scope to pursue your interests, turning what could be simply ‘a job’ into something that inspires, engages and motivates you.

Keep this list of interests as you may be able to build upon it over time. You may also want to talk to friends, family or Careers Advisers to see if they can help you expand your mind map of potential jobs related to your interest.

Reading specialist papers, magazines or following social media related to the areas you are interested in may also help you to expand your ideas and identify job roles or opportunities you never knew existed.  Be open minded, find out more - you may be able to find or create a job idea you’ll love.

Incorporating interests

Most of us want to do something we enjoy and find satisfying, but defining exactly what tasks we enjoy is often tricky.

Imagine it's Societies Day in the Octagon and there are 8 different societies recruiting for new members. Each one has members who have the same or similar interests and approaches to how things should be done.

Try this interactive exercise and see if it helps you to identify the type of job that might interest you. This should take you 3 - 4 minutes.

Interactive exercise: Interests

While it’s possible that you feel none of the jobs fit your own preferences, don’t automatically dismiss this approach. Whether the list gives you some concrete ideas or not, try to think how the job ideas relate to each other and whether they offer you some possible categories to research further.

Thinking about your interests and the things you enjoy doing can be a good starting point for generating ideas of jobs that might suit you. This task will hopefully have helped you to identify some jobs related to some of your interests.

You may want to add the list of potential job ideas to your portfolio and research these ideas using some of the websites and resources we recommend in the section 'Find out more'.

Personality

When it comes to really understanding yourself, having an insight into your ‘personality’ is essential.

Your personality can influence how you behave, make decisions, respond to situations and relate to others. Knowing about different facets of personality can help you to understand yourself better - and appreciate how or why others are different.

It can also help you understand how or when you may need to change your approach to be more successful or to relate to other people better.  Understanding your personality can also help you explore careers, study ideas or work environments in which you are more likely to feel comfortable.

Complete these interactive exercises, based on the Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator (MBTI), a well-respected approach to understanding yourself and others better. Each exercise should take you 2 - 3 minutes.

Interactive exercise: The focus of your energyInteractive exercise: The focus of your attentionInteractive exercise: How you make decisionsInteractive exercise: How you manage your lifeThis approach to understanding personality does not imply your behaviour is fixed. Obviously you can adapt to different situations and environments. Personality cannot therefore dictate what job you can do, but it might suggest there are approaches to doing the job or environments that may suit you more, where you may be 'more yourself’ and where you don’t have to use extra energy to try to fit in or fulfil your role.

Identity

Who are you?  Do the roles you play and the identity you adopt inform your life or career choices?

Sometimes we are unaware of influences upon us which inform our identity. We almost need to ‘step outside ourselves’ to evaluate what we think and feel about ourselves and how these perceptions inform our behaviours and choices.

Listen to the following case studies. Or if you prefer, read the transcript.  How do these students' identities influence the career choices they are making?

Medic case study
Retail case study
Case studies transcript  

Review

Having listened to these case studies, think about:

How is the image these clients have formed about themselves influencing their choices? How is this person’s self-image affecting their ability to make progress? If this person was your best friend, would you sensitively challenge their self-perception and the impact it is having on them?  How would you do this?

How does your identify inform the choices you make and the actions you take?

Here’s a quick task. Click on the link below and download the Identity task. See if you can add 20 things to complete the sentence 'I am ...'

Exercise: Identity

Reflection

  • Looking at how you have defined yourself, does your identity / self-image have an impact on your ability to make progress with your career thinking?
  • How have the ways you have defined yourself influenced your attitudes, behaviours and ideas about opportunities open to you?
  • Are you happy with these self-defined roles? Or as your own best friend, how would you challenge this sense of your own identity and the impact it is having on you?
Values

Values are the things that are important to us and add meaning to our life. They may be our core principles or beliefs that guide the way we live. They are not what we’d like to be or how we think we should be, but rather who we are and what is important to us right now.

They can be deeply held, and living according to these makes us feel fulfilled and satisfied.  Not following them, however, can make us feel compromised, unhappy or demotivated.

Recognising your values and identifying work or employers who match these can therefore lead to happiness and fulfilment in your work and life.

Values can be so ingrained they can be hard to identify and express. To help you identify and understand your values, click on the link and try to answer some of the questions.

Exercise: Values

Review

When doing research into different career options, try looking for work or organisations that reflect your priorities and values. Looking at job descriptions can help you to establish whether the responsibilities and purpose of a job role reflect your own priorities.

Similarly, organisations may post details of their mission statements or corporate social responsibility statements on their websites and this may give you an indication of the organisation’s priorities. You can therefore carefully assess the company’s priorities to see if or how they match your own values.  There will be more information on how to research companies in the next section 'Find out more'.

Motivations

What are the rewards or returns that you want that make the job worthwhile and will give you a sense of fulfilment or job satisfaction?

For some, salary is the prime motivator. For others, motivation goes beyond monetary reward and they would strive to achieve this sense of fulfilment through any activity they undertook - whether they were getting paid for it or not.

What is it that will motivate you and give you a sense of satisfaction?

Try this interactive self assessment exercise to understand more of what motivates you. It should take you 3 - 4 minutes.

Interactive exercise: Self assessment

Review

Completing this task will have helped you identify what motivates and gives you a sense of fulfilment. Looking for jobs and careers that satisfy these will turn 'a job' into a job you'll love.

Personal circumstances and needs

Each of us has our own list of important factors that will affect our choices of possible job options or potential employers. These might relate to skills, interests and motivations, but sometimes decisions are based on personal circumstances, practical needs or physical constraints.

Identify any personal needs you have or constraints that could have a practical impact on the decisions you make. Some common personal circumstances and needs are given below but add your own if appropriate.

I need to earn a salary over the average graduate salary level of £23,000 in order to meet my financial commitments The High Flyers report, Graduate market in 2017 has details of the top recruiters and the areas of work attracting top salaries.
I need a particular pattern of hours of work (part-time, 9 - 5, regular, etc) Search the Job profiles of Prospects which includes typical working hours.
The organisation needs to have a positive attitude towards my gender and sexuality

Use the website Stonewall Proud employers as a starting point to researching LGBT positive employers.

Targetjobs Diversity matters also includes useful information and advice.
I need an organisation with a family friendly work policy The top 30 family friendly organisations are listed under Working families. However, there are many more. Check out the organisation's website if you are interested in working for them.
I need an organisation that has a positive attitude to my disability and will help me access the reasonable adjustments I need to perform my duties

Start with Targetjobs Disability and mental health: diversity matters

Department of Work and Pensions also has a section: Looking for work if you are disabled 
I want to work in an ethical environment Try the Ethical consumer website which rates the ethics of companies.
I have a criminal conviction and will need an organisation that will consider me fairly in the recruitment process Read tips on Targetjobs People with a criminal record: diversity matters

Keep these in mind when considering career decisions and if these relate to you, then the resources in 'Find out more' will help you research and identify appropriate organisations and opportunities.

A vision of your future

If your career ‘fairy godmother’ had a magic wand, and could make your career wishes come true, what would you wish for?  If you can visualise what you want, you can try to make it happen and turn that vision into reality.

Here are a few tasks that will help you create a vision of the future. You obviously don’t have to do all of these tasks and some might suit your preferred learning style more than others.

Task 1 - Your retirement speech - write you ideal retirement speech, of how you would hope colleagues remember you.

When you retire, it is customary for the colleagues to present you with a leaving gift and for the boss to say a brief but sincere speech about the key achievements from your career, what they have valued or appreciated about your contribution to the organisation, what colleagues say about you and how you’ll be remembered both personally and professionally.

Click on the link to download the retirement speech exercise and have a go at writing the boss’s leaving speech. What do you want them to say about you, what do you want to be remembered for? What do you want to have achieved or contributed to the organisation or colleagues?

Exercise: Your retirement speech

Having done the exercise, what are the main features of your vision for the future?

Focusing on the end goal can help you to see some of the things you may want to work towards, the values that are important to you and things you want to factor into your life plans. It might also help you to realise, success is not just based on what you do, but equally important is how you do it.

Task 2 - Live the dream - write down your thoughts on your perfect vision of the future.

Create a vision of the future. Where will you be? What will you be doing? Where will you be living? How might a typical day be? Who will be with you? Just to think of a few things.

If you’d like some prompts to help you create your vision, you might enjoy doing this guided visualisation task.  Sit somewhere comfortable where you won’t be disturbed and where there are no distractions. Take a few deep breaths, turn down the lights if you can, close your eyes and listen to this recording. Let your mind wander, daydream to create a picture of your future.

A typical day in your future

After you have listened to the recording, click on the link to download the exercise and write down the vision you imagined.

Exercise: My vision of the future

Through this task you may have created a fantasy vision of your future.  Some of your ideas may seem unrealistic at the moment - that's fine. It’s OK to aspire and dream… dreams can become reality and when you are in your workplace you can try and adapt your dream into reality.

Add your notes from this creative task to your portfolio and you can then refer to it when you are assessing how different career ideas could give you the opportunity to achieve your vision of the future.

Having done the exercises in this section, what are the main features of your vision for the future?

Task 3 - Create a picture of the future - are you feeling creative? Get out the glue stick and scissors and design an image of your future aspirations.

If you are finding it hard to put into words what you aspire for, and if you fancy getting the glue stick and scissors out and doing something creative, this can be a fun way to visualise and imagine your future aspirations. You may even want to make a fun evening of doing this - invite friends round and they can have a go at this task too.

Resources required

Gather a selection of publications such as magazines, newspapers, Sunday supplements, professional journals, travel brochures, newsletters, promotional information etc.

Get a variety of different materials covering a broad spectrum of interests if possible and:

  • A sheet of plain paper or card (A3 or larger if possible)
  • Glue stick
  • Scissors


Instructions

Your goal is to create a vision of where you want to be or what you want from your life and career. Look at the materials and select pictures, images and words that are important to your vision of the future. Cut them out and stick them to the sheet of blank paper.

Next

Consider some of these prompts. If you are doing this task with friends, ask each other the following questions:

  • Tell me the story of what you have created
  • What do the individual aspects of the picture mean to you?
  • Which aspects of the picture are most important to you and why?
  • Do some aspects of the picture depend on other parts?
  • Is anything on here a more short term aspiration… or medium term… or longer term vision?
  • How much of your picture is within your control?
  • How does paid/unpaid work relate to this vision?
  • Do any of your career or life goals become clear within this picture?

Rest assured, you are not being judged on your creative abilities or being asked to justify your selections. The task is simply to help you approach thinking about the future in a different or more creative way.


Hopefully, however, it will help you to articulate some of the things that are important to you in the future and help you to understand that everyone’s requirements are different. Your goals and vision of the future is unique to you, and obviously this might change so you may need to review this vision of the future over time.

(Based on a task from The Windmills Programme – Career Tactics for the 21st Century)

Review of interests

Having done the exercise, what are the main features of your vision for the future?

What do you want to strive for professionally and personally over your lifetime?

Finding the balance

For some, ‘work is life’ and finding something that is all-encompassing, that captures their time and engages their energy, is a priority that inspires and motivates them.

For others, paid employment is a means to an end and the priority is something or somewhere else. Their main occupation may not be paid employment; a job simply provides the funding that enables them to pursue other passions or priorities.

It can be important to think about your definition of what work means to you.

To explore this further, read these case studies from our graduates and consider the implications of their different areas of work and lifestyles.

  • Valentine - principle technical artist
  • Lydia - global consultant relations
  • Rebecca - animal welfare adviser
  • James - vice president, sales and business development

Having a harmony between work and life can mean different things to different people. There is no right or wrong, but thinking about how you’d like to create a satisfying balance between the things and people that are important to you can improve your well-being, lifestyle and happiness.

Try our interactive exercise, indicating some of the main elements that describe a full and satisfying life.

Interactive exercise: Pie of life

Are you happy with the ratings you have given to different aspects of your life?  Are there areas you want to improve or change?

Where does work ‘fit’ in your life?  The priority and energy you devote to work compared to other aspects of your life may change at different stages of your life whether because of wanting to pursue other interests or because of family, health or other commitments.

There is certainly no right or wrong answer to this, and getting the balance right can be an important aspect of happiness and wellbeing, so it’s worth reviewing your priorities and life harmony at significant times throughout your life.

Environment

We can spend a lot of time in the workplace so being in the right environment is critical to your career enjoyment and success. Your work environment could describe physical conditions, such as location, temperature, decor or equipment, or your personal workspace. It can also be related to factors such as work processes and procedures or other aspects of organisational culture.

You could be in the right role but if the environment doesn't suit you, it could lead to your overall unhappiness. Finding the right job in the right environment for you is important, so where you work and under what conditions is something to be explored when making career decisions.

Try the interactive exercise to view a variety of different working environments. It should take you 2 - 3 minutes. Do you have any preferences for where you would like to work?

Interactive exercise: Working environments

Having completed this task and considered which physical working environments might or might not appeal to you, you could also think about other aspects of working environments such as:

  • Organisational culture
  • Personality or diversity of your colleagues
  • Communication style
  • Management style

Now watch the following film of a particular working environment.

  • How would you feel about working in this environment?
  • What appeals/doesn’t appeal to you about the:
    - Working space
    - Organisational culture
  • What would be your preferences when researching or choosing a working environment?

Thinking about the type of environment and the physical working space that you would be happy in on a day-to-day basis could give you more focus when looking into different job roles or working for different organisations.

Based on these activities, think about how important your working environment is to you and ultimately what will make you feel comfortable. This can then form part of your "wish list" when starting to research your options.

Summary

Each of the tasks you have done from this section of the course will have helped you to identify or clarify elements you want to feature in your future working life.

Even if you have not completed all of the different sections of the site, that’s okay. The more you do, the clearer the image of your future life and career will be.

Finally to collate your thoughts and priorities, click on the link to download the priorities table into your portfolio. Only complete Step 1 - priorities for the moment. Add into the table the three most important factors from each of the section's tasks you have completed. We will come back to this table again in the final section - 'Make the choice'.

Priorities table

Find out more

In this section you will become familiar with resources and ways to research careers, industry and future trends.

You will also be able to critically evaluate sources of careers information so you can research your options using reliable and reputable resources.

Introduction

We all know that different careers and courses require different skills and qualities, and possibly specific qualifications, experience and knowledge. They also offer varying rewards, both personal and financial, so researching your career ideas is essential.

Getting accurate information about your career ideas means you can:

  • Decide if they are right for you – meeting many of the needs you identified in the 'Who are you' section of this course
  • Assess whether it’s a realistic option – looking at things like the availability of jobs, likely entry requirements etc

There’s no single best way to research different careers but the following approach is one we recommend:

  • Go online
  • Think ACTIVE
  • Talk talk
  • Summary - try it out
     
Once you have completed your research, you can then put all the pieces of self-discovery and your greater understanding of the job market together so you can evaluate your career options and make decisions about your future. There will be more on this in the 'Make the choice' section.
Go online

One starting point is to read profiles of the types of work that interest you. Although you might need to scour the internet for articles or videos about more unusual types of work, profiles describing most occupations can easily be found on websites such as:

What do you want to know?

While researching different resources it is useful to have an idea of the things you really need to know if you are seriously considering a specific occupation.

Try this fun interactive exercise and see if you can identify things that might be important when considering an occupation. It should only take you 2 - 3 minutes.

Interactive exercise: Hangman

From this task you will have identified some of the things that you might want to consider or research to help you decide whether an occupation will be right for you, and whether it is a realistic option.

Personal circumstances and needs

Having considered some of your motivations, values and priorities in the 'Who you are' section, you might have a further checklist of things you want from your future employer to ensure they will accommodate your personal circumstances and needs. Look back at the 'Personal circumstances and needs' section for a reminder of some useful resources.

Think ACTIVE

In an era of fake news and dubious articles on social media, try not to be passive and simply accept all information as fact. You need to use your critical thinking to determine if what you are reading, seeing or hearing about a chosen career is reliable.

So we’ve devised ACTIVE – six factors to bear in mind when using sources of information to investigate your career idea.

  • Accurate – roles, entry routes and job opportunities can change, so are you getting up-to-date advice?
  • Comprehensive – one source can’t tell you the full story, so if you like what you see, you need to use other sources to add to what you know.
  • Trustworthy – is the source reputable, for example is the interview, podcast, article or video delivered by someone with expertise or experience?
  • Impartial – some organisations/people are seeking to promote their particular sector. This doesn’t mean the information is inaccurate, but does it tell the whole story?
  • Valid – is the information relevant to the context in which you are interested e.g. typical tasks of a job in one country can be quite different in another, as can the likelihood or method of finding work in that field.
  • Even-handed – as well as the good points about the career, does the information identify any challenges typically involved, such as demanding tasks, high levels of competition for jobs, lower pay levels, reduced numbers of jobs in the sector, etc.

Click the links to look at the following sources of information about careers, industries and trends. Evaluate them using the ACTIVE criteria.  Consider which parts of ACTIVE have or have not been satisfied. Then view our comments underneath.

Future trends survey - Riba, June 2017

Comprehensive? – this source of information only presents the headlines, ie forecast in workload. Therefore, you might need to read further around the topic to get a fuller picture of the reasons for this forecast. Reading the full text might give you this information, or you may need to research the sector further using a wider variety of sources.

Valid? – do you know where the information came from or how the data was collected? It may be that the data collected was from a context which is different to the one in which you are interested in, eg a different region, specialism, role and therefore, may not be a true representation of the area you are researching.

Working for Tesco (video case study)

Impartial?- think about the purpose of this case study and the reason behind the company producing it. Is there a certain image that they are trying to present of the company/role? Therefore, what are they not saying? Finding more unbiased views of a company will help to give you a more balanced view of working in that role/company.

Even-handed? – do you think that there is anything that she is not saying about her role? Can you think of any possible negative sides of this role that she has not mentioned? Linked to the previous point about impartiality, she may be consciously trying to project a positive image of employment in that company and there may be the need to delve a bit deeper into working in that role/company/sector from a more objective perspective.

How to become a designer without going to design school (blog)

Accurate? – in the world of graphic design, do you think that some of the suggestions made in regard to software etc. are still up-to-date? In some sectors or occupations, there may be few changes to routes into occupations. However, in a fast changing world of work, it may be necessary to seek the most up-to-date information you can find to ensure you are receiving accurate advice.

Trustworthy? – think about the level of experience from which this advice has been written. There may be some useful hints and tips but would you feel satisfied that it has been written from a position of authority? It may be beneficial to back up some of the advice given by looking at further sources of information.

Senior Lecturer job advert

Valid? – job adverts can be a good source of information for finding out about what might be involved in a job in terms of responsibilities and day-to-day activities. However, is this advert relevant for what you might be looking for at the moment? Viewing "typical" job descriptions or profiles might give you more detail about how to get into the more senior positions.

Talk talk

As well as reading about a career, talking to people who do the kind of work that interests you will really bring your ideas to life and give you further insight.

Ways you can network include:

Task

Think of a career that interests you. What do you want or need to know about working in that occupational area?

  • List a minimum of 3 questions you would like to ask a contact about their job or industry, to decide if it’s something that you would like to pursue further.
  • Use our Graduate case studies database as a starting point to search for graduates and ask them about their work.

Use the filter to search for the sector you’re interested in and then look through the various job titles. The names with a “?” next to them are happy to respond to your questions.

If you are unable to get responses to your questions using this method, try out the other resources mentioned, as well as seeking out your own personal contacts who might be able to help you.

Summary

In this section we have looked at different ways of researching jobs and sectors. During your research aim to:

  • Use a variety of resources to build your knowledge of the industry, sector, role you are interested in.
  • Consider if the information helps you assess whether the job option matches your priorities.
  • Ask the right sorts of questions to check that the information presented is reliable and presents a true picture of the industry, sector or role.

Knowledge about different career options is essential for you to be able to make the right career choices. The tasks that you have completed in this section will be a useful starting point but look out for further sources of information and networking opportunities. You may also need a little more insight into some career paths to make a decision. This is where work shadowing (observing one or more individuals in their role), part time jobs, volunteering, placements and other work experience can help.

These real life experiences can assist decision-making, developing essential skills and knowledge, and convince employers of your motivation to work in that field.

Make the choice

If you completed any of the tasks within the 'Who you are' section of this course, you will have identified the priority features of your ideal future, eg your skills, strengths, values, motivations, personality and priorities etc.

In the researching your options section you will also have looked at ways of finding out more about different opportunities.

The next step is to stand back and draw some conclusions.

Watch the video and then use the Priorities table that you saved into your portfolio when you completed the 'Who you are' summary table.

  • use * to mark in the most important critical features that you want
  • add some job options that appeal to you
  • add a √ if the job option meets your requirements; an X if it doesn't and a ? if further research is required

Add more job ideas if you want to evaluate these options against your criteria.

If you have not yet used the Priorities table, you can click on the link below and download it now.

Priorities table

Next steps

Having done the ‘matching’ task - possibly several times as you reviewed and revised your different job ideas - you will hopefully be closer to identifying career options you want to pursue.

Now imagine the interview scenario and the inevitable question you will be asked:

“So tell me, why do you want this job?”

Having completed this course you are now better able to answer this kind of question.

So prepare your answer based on how the job matches your priorities.

To do this, refer to:

  • Your interests, skills and priorities etc as examined in the 'Who you are' section of this site
  • Your greater understanding of the job and its requirements as explored in the 'Find out more' section.

Write down your answer, or even try recording it on your phone to see how convincing and motivated you look or sound. Once you are ready to apply for jobs ‘for real’, you might want to continue with our other online courses:

How to succeed at: Writing applications

How to succeed at: Interviews

Finally...

We have now reached the end of this section and the course. We hope you've enjoyed it and found it useful. Please make use of our downloadable exercises and also return to use the material whenever you want to.