Confused about your career choice?

It’s the time of year when all around you fellow students are busy getting ready to make applications to graduate roles, internships and further study. Does it feel like everyone apart from you has their future planned out? Don’t worry, hopefully this article will give you some pointers about how to make that all important career decision and start planning for your future.

It pays to understand you!

A career is most likely to be satisfying if it enables you to use your preferred skills and personal qualities. You will need to reflect on your strengths, attributes, skills and experience so far to enable you to build a clearer picture of yourself. Think about all your qualifications, and also the skills you have developed through your studies, extra-curricular activities and any work experience to build a picture of what you would like to use in your work and also perhaps which skills you would prefer to avoid. As well as thinking carefully about what factors are important to you and what skills you want to use and develop, it is also essential to consider what interests you and what it is that you would like to achieve in your career. You might like to consider how much you wish to use your degree subject in your chosen career. Jobs for graduates can be roughly divided into three categories: those where the degree discipline is an essential element of the job; those where the degree discipline provides useful background knowledge but will not be used directly and finally careers which are open to graduates of any discipline. It is worth noting that about 45% of all graduate roles are open to students from any subject so that really opens up your choice. Your leisure and other interests outside your degree studies may also give you an indication of the type of career that might attract you. The clearer you are about what will challenge and satisfy you, the easier it will be to select the career ideas with the most potential. Whatever your interests are – from your degree, extra-curricular activities or elsewhere – consider whether and how you might wish to use them. Do you want to focus your career on this area of interest or knowledge, or would you simply like to have it as a context for your job? But it not just your skills and interests that are important, motivation and values are just as critical when thinking about your career direction. A job that meets your motivational criteria is most probably going to be a fulfilling job. For some people, a high status and significant salary will be key factors when they are choosing a career. Other people may place great importance on having a good balance between their work and home life or in a career that will continue to challenge intellectually. You may want to “make a difference” in your job – what does this phrase mean to you? Is it about having a commercial impact, making a scientific discovery or helping a child to learn? Thinking through how you feel about work will also help you in your final career choice.

Next step – find out what is available!

We are very fortunate at Imperial College, with many companies interested in recruiting Imperial students. As a result you will get lots of exposure to different industry sectors and types of companies during your degree. There are plenty of opportunities to investigate career roles, and potential employers throughout the year by attending Fairs, Forums, Lunchtime Careers Talks, Recruiter in Residence Days, alumni networking sessions and much more all designed to allow you to research and make contact with potential employers. JobsLive is also a great source of information with a database of over 7000 employer profiles searchable by industry sector and location. Because it tends to be the larger organisations that physically come onto campus JobsLive is a great way to begin to research smaller companies and start-ups who may well offer a perfect way to start your career. Remember not every job is going to be clearly advertised. The ‘hidden’ job market describes those vacancies which employers don’t advertise yet still want to fill. Advertising a job can be costly and might generate more applications than they really want making it a time consuming to process for the employer. Some job sectors are so popular that employers may receive enough speculative applications to fill any position without advertising. It is estimated that the 70% of jobs are filled though the hidden job market. To discover how to make the most in this area check out information at http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/careers/ug/grad/hidden for help in breaking into these ‘hidden’ roles. Considering further study as your next step? Yet again it pays to plan early and to think through what you hope to gain from the course you choose. Masters, PhD, vocational qualification, specialise from degree or change direction, funding and location all need to be considered. There is information on further study at http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/careers/ug/consideringfurtherstudy to help you work through your choices. To start with it might seem as though your research into you is generating more questions than answers but it pays to take the time to build this picture of yourself and how your future might look. Understanding what is important to you will hopefully make you more confident when it comes to making decisions, researching opportunities in the job market and it will also make it much easier to eventually market yourself to employers.

To get further help with career decision making go to:

www.imperial.ac.uk/careers/ug/plan