Career Planning
Exploring and making career choices can be challenging. At the Career Zone, we’re here to support you through this process and help you understand the steps you can take now to feel more confident and prepared for the decisions ahead as you approach graduation.
We’ve developed a four-stage approach to guide you through your career planning and decision-making. Each stage includes helpful resources and schemes to support you. We recommend starting with Reflect, then moving through Explore, Focus, and Apply, but you can also move straight to the stage that best matches where you are right now.
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Knowing who you are by reflecting on your skills, interests, values and motivations is an important first step in careers development, but it is often overlooked. Understanding what really matters to you can help you find your ideal career fit as you’ll be able to determine if a specific role or employer aligns with your preferences.
Exploring your options involves expanding your knowledge of the range of occupations, sectors and organisations that may be of interest to you. Look at our sector pages, attend careers fairs and develop your network. You need to think about what it would be like to work in a range of roles in a variety of organisations and what you need to do to gain employment. Do you need specific training, qualifications or skills for your desired role? This takes a lot of research.
- Ask an Alum
- Career Mentor Scheme
- Choosing Postgraduate Study
- Employment Sectors
- Explore options with your degree
- Getting the most from LinkedIn
- Making the most of Careers Fairs & Employer and Alumni events
- Networking and making career connections
- Researching employers
- Self-employment and entrepreneurship
Once you have done your research, you’ll need to start making informed and realistic decisions to narrow down your options. This may involve exploring several options, so you will need to be flexible and adaptable in your approach. Gaining relevant work experience, attending employer events and careers fairs to talk to specific employers will help you in this process. The groundwork of self- awareness will be critical in keeping you motivated and helping you to set your goals.
How do you get from where you are now to where you want to be? What is the recruitment process for the careers that interests you? What action do you need to take to enable you to move smoothly into your career of choice?