Action Plan: How to research your career idea Goal: to find out more about a career idea Why do this? • • • • •
if you plan to put time and effort into pursuing a career goal, make sure its what you really want you need to look closely at a career, to make sure you have a clear and realistic understanding of what it will involve by looking more closely at one option, you might be inspired by other related ideas and options if you have several ideas, researching them more closely will help you focus or narrow down your choices you will need to change or re-direct your career several times during your working life, so it’s good to know how to research new ideas
Next Steps: Try some of the following;
□ Look on-line at information about this job o Start with Job Profiles o Use the Job profiles to find links to professional bodies and specialist websites. You can use these for further research. o www.prospects.ac.uk has lots of excellent career information, ideas and vacancies aimed at university graduates (but you can use it too!) o Use the careers database on Pathfinder, which is on the Careersetc portal to read information about your career idea. (Your school or college may also have Kudos or Adult Directions) o Visit www.icould.com has real people talking about their careers o Visit www.careersbox.com which has employers and their employees talking about what they do o Visit www.talkingjobs.com which has career champions, people talking about what they do and how they got in
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□ Use Pathfinder (Kudos or Adult Directions) and the careers matching part of the programme to see if you match to my career idea. If you don’t match, why not? It doesn’t mean you can’t do it, but it will give you things to think about carefully (e.g. you want to do catering but don’t want to work evenings and weekends)
□ Look on-line at professional websites, on-line industry magazines and journals (use the links from the Job Profiles).
□ Speak to someone who does the job? You could ask friends and family if they know anyone. You could ask your school if they have links to local employers or Alumni who could help (Alumni are people who attended your school in the past)
□ Ask your school if it is possible to do work experience in this or a related area □ Volunteer in a related area or an area which helps you use similar skills. You could search for local volunteering opportunities at www.do-it.org.uk or ask at your school if they can help
□ Look on-line or in newspapers for vacancies and use these to download real job descriptions and person specifications
□ Think
about possible employers (use clues from the Job Profiles) who can give more information about how and who they recruit on their website (e.g. you want to be a flight attendant so you could look on www.ba.com – British Airways)
□ Attend a college Open Day and talk to teachers about relevant subjects □ Is this option available via an apprenticeship? Talk to a local training provider about this career area (Ask your teacher if any training providers come and give talks in your school, or look at their websites – see www.apprenticeships-in-sussex.com for contact details). Check for vacancies on www.apprenticeships.org.uk
□ Attend careers events at your school or in the local area. You could target people who link to your career idea but also talk to others who don’t. You could prepare some questions to take with you or just ask open questions such as ‘What do you do? What does that involve? What’s the best part of your job? What’s the worst part of your job? People love to talk about themselves! Most people will be very happy to answer your questions.
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Produced in August 2011 by the Healthy Schools Team, Brighton and Hove Council
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