Our tips to finding your career!

It’s national careers week, so what better time to share our top tips on how to embark on your journey to finding the right career? It can seem like a long and impossible road ahead with lots of possible avenues; if you break it down, take your time and work through our tips then hopefully you will have a better idea of where you would like to head!

Speak to people

It really can be that easy to hear about roles and sectors that interest you! When you are at family dinners, night’s out with friends, speaking to teachers, out for a coffee, at the gym, at work with your current colleagues- the list can go on… There is no better way to get a feel for careers and the jobs people do - ultimately what careers really are out there, than to ask questions. 

Focus on your strengths

As humans, we are hardwired to hone in on the negatives but it is important to focus on what you are good at and what it is that you actually enjoy doing. You will be working more hours than you will be enjoying the fruits of your labour so you need to be doing something that you are happy to do! When we discuss strengths, we don’t mean simply academic - don’t forget your other skills are transferable.

Explore

This could be just walking around your local town/city looking at businesses, finding out what they do, what roles their staff do for their companies. Or you could get an even wider reach of the country or the world… really see what is out there. 

Keep an open mind

Along with focussing on your strengths, you need to be open to the things that you haven’t tried and might be good at in the future. When starting the search for a new career it’s also important not to hyperfocus on a single sector/role that you haven’t fully researched. Keep your eyes open for opportunities and ideas as they crop up everywhere.

Try things out

Speak to people and see if there are any opportunities to volunteer within their businesses or get some level of work experience. The only way that you are going to know if you enjoy something is by actually doing it! You will likely get some knock backs and hear the word “no” but you will be surprised at the amount of people who want to pay it forward, everybody started out somewhere and would have relied on the kindness of others at one time.

You don’t have to do the job forever

Remember, this isn’t a “be all and end all” situation. Times have changed and people are very rarely in a job for their entire working lives now. If you train for something, do it for a few years and fall out of love with it, your personal life doesn’t accommodate it any longer or your priorities change then you can get a new role and you can retrain.