Planning your career

Where do you see yourself in the future?

It’s important to have a career plan as a practical strategy to allow you to identify your skills and interests, to find a role which you enjoy.

Identify the career you would like

Make a list of your options, identify your skills and interests.

Identify your transferable and specialist skills, be able to provide examples of where you have demonstrated these skills. This can narrow down your options to the next steps.

Ask yourself what you are good at? What motivates you? What do you want from your career? What’s important to you?

If you are struggling to identify your strengths and weaknesses you can take a practice psychometric test which are accessible across the internet, which could help you identify these.

Explore your career ideas

Think about the job sector which interests you:

Private – sole traders, partnerships and limited companies
Public – local and national governments and chartered bodies
Not-for-profit – charities or third sector work.

Browse job profiles to narrow down where your skills and qualifications could be used. Consider the size of the organization which best suits you and your work ethic.

Make a decision

Combine what you have learnt about yourself with what you’ve discovered about your job options. Decide on which occupation suits you best. Ensure to select one or two alternatives, incase you aren’t able to pursue the first option.

If you’re still struggling on making a decision, a simple exercise you can complete is a SWOT analysis to identify your:

Strengths: the skills, traits and qualifications which would bring to the role what someone else may not.

Weaknesses: how to improve? Is there anything you can do to enhance your skill set?

Opportunities: have a look if the industry is expanding, can you take advantage of your competitors mistakes or gaps in the market?

Threats: are there any weaknesses which may slow down your progress at work? Is there anything that may become a hurdle in your development, such as change in technology?

If you have any questions or would like to learn more get in touch.