More about planning your career

Career planning involves a number of different stages:

Learning how to make career decisions

This is the first step in taking control of your own career planning.

You should:

Think about what you want from your career and what you have to offer an employer.
Find out what is available.
As ideas begin to develop, refine your choices.

Making a career decision

To make a career decision, it is important to link what you want from a career and what you can offer an employer, to what careers are available.

Think about the following to get started:

Draw on your experiences in work, education and interests and what other people say you are good at.
Think about your interests, what do you enjoy doing and what do you dislike doing.
What is important to you; good money, job security; career development, status, working in teams. Make a list.
Do you prefer practical or intellectual tasks? Can you provide evidence of this to your employer?
Do you enjoy a challenge and like to take responsibility or would you prefer something a little less stressful? Whatever your answer to this question is, it's the right answer.
What sort of lifestyle do you want?
What kind of workplace would you like to work in?
Talk to people who know you about the jobs they do.
Do you know how important work is to your life?
Do you know what you want to get out of work? What is the most/least important?
Do you know what you can offer an employer and have evidence to back this up?
Do you know what opportunities exist (or do you just think you know)?

These are essential questions to answer if you are to move forward with a well-informed decision about your future career.

Find out more from Which career?

Finding out about my chosen job or course

Once you have made a career decision, you can begin to find out more about that career.

You should use the internet, read the papers, ask about work shadowing or work experience and talk to relatives, friends, colleagues.

Think about what you need to find out:

General skills needed
Specific skills needed for the job
Training or education required for this kind of work
Different methods to get into this job
Opportunities to develop your career in this job

More about my chosen job or course

Knowing how to apply

This is about selling yourself.

It can vary between different jobs and different employers, but it is always important to show you know about the job and why you would be good at it. This should be clear to you if you have thought carefully about it.

You must be able to write about your qualifications, skills and experience and what your aims are, usually in an application form, letter of application or CV.

Understanding interviews and assessments

Interviews serve a number of purposes:

It gives you the chance to present your strengths directly to your employer and learn more about what you have applied for.
It gives the employer the chance to gather information about you to decide whether you are the best person for the job role.
It gives your employer a chance to collect information not supplied in your CV.
The employer as interviewer is in a strong position but there are four important things in your favour.
You don't get to the interview stage unless your employer believes you can do the job.
You supply all the information about yourself. This means that while the interviewer controls the interview, you control the answers.

Most of the questions can be predicted in advance.

You've done well to get this far; interview shortlists are normally made up of between 6 and 10 people depending on the vacancy.

Developing my Career

All planning is about preparation and being prepared for future events.

Things can go wrong, even when the career planning process has been systematic and rational.

Unexpected things happen e.g. an opportunity for promotion will arise, skills will need to be updated or you may need to move to a new job role with your employer.

You can move back and forward along the Career Planning Journey throughout your career.

However, if you've used the method once and planned effectively, you will find it much easier to use again.