Introduction to how to choose a career

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.

Steve Jobs

Many students don't have much time to spend in career planning during their degree course. You may be too busy working to earn money to pay your way through university, or perhaps you are a mature student with a young family that you need to support. You may be too busy to regularly visit the Careers Service. These pages will allow you to do much of this career planning via the web.

First let's look at what factors go into choosing a career:

Choosing a career involves 4 main stages:

• Self Awareness
• Opportunity Awareness
• Decision Making
• Taking Action

Sometimes these stages will overlap and sometimes you have to return to a previous stage Be aware the cycle is not always as linear and consistent as it is presented here.

Self Awareness

The first stage of Career Choice is Self Awareness. This involves looking at your SKILLS, VALUES, INTERESTS and PERSONALITY and analysing where your strengths and weaknesses lie. This is important both in choosing the right career and also for success in applications and interviews where you will find many questions which test whether you have been through this process.

You can start with looking at your SKILLS here. You can now also look at your INTERESTS , VALUES and PERSONAL STYLES on the web.

Opportunity Awareness

Once you have done some preliminary self analysis, the next stage is to gather information on the opportunities open to you. There is a range of resources to help you here:

There is a range of general careers talks each term which are listed here

Information on what you can do with your degree subject

Many jobs are open to graduates of any degree subject, and it's important not to only focus on the jobs related to your degree, but if you are doing a vocational degree, or simply want to find out what previous Kent graduates in your subject have gone on to do, the following resources should help.

• What can I do with my degree in ......? information on careers from all Kent degree subjects.
• Careers open to graduates with any degree subject

Early in your course you should look at the Work Experience open to you. As well as allowing you to earn money, they may allow you to gain relevant skills and perhaps an insight into the types of job you are interested in, putting you at the head of the queue when you eventually apply for jobs.

The Careers Information Room has a wide variety of booklets, reference files, books, DVD's and computer programmes you can use.

You may like to enter Postgraduate Study instead of directly entering a job, or it may be required for a particular career such as law or teaching. Here it may be important to apply early in your final year and to look at whether funding will be available to pay for the course.