Using careers Information to help your career
There has always a tension between getting on with applying for jobs or the next course and making sure that you’ve spent enough time researching a career or industry. Who wants to end up in an industry where employment is shrinking or future demand isn’t going to be where you want to live? An example would be mining engineering. In the 60’s and 70’s there was quite a demand for these engineers in Britain, nowadays well qualified mining engineers find that the vacancies tend to be in countries like India, Australia, the US, Canada, Russia and China. Which is great if you are really into engineering, geology and want to have an international career, but not so good if actually you are a bit of a ‘home bird’ and want to stay closer to family in the UK.
So, how can you go about researching the prospects of a career you are interested in, without a cyrstal ball? Here are some tips that you can use, to find out more relevant careers information. This is often more widely known as labour market information, labour market intelligence or LMI! This information can be part of the ‘jigsaw’ in your career decision making. Ask any careers professional and they will be in ‘careers heaven’ if you ask about ‘opportunity awareness’ (i.e. LMI!) and DOTS theory, but that’s perhaps for another blog.
Think geographically as well as career ‘area’.
Before you start looking at labour market information, make a list of the questions you want answered for each career area. It will help you compare the various ideas you will come across.
Its worth considering LMI in a geographical sense as well as occupationally. So for instance what jobs are available or trending locally in your town/city/county, regionally, e.g. East Anglia, nationally and internationally. And look at what’s not available - e.g. surf instructors in Derby. Some reliable LMI sources are listed below, which may help. And if you are interested in moving geographically, due to wanting to start a university course or for other reasons - this information can help you find out how easy or hard it will be to find part or full time work.
Where to start looking?
Local FE colleges can be a good source of information. If you are interested in a particular course, they can talk through with you how easy or difficult previous students have found finding work after finishing a course. FE students tend to stay locally or possibly regionally.
Recruitment agencies websites Agency Central has a search facility for industries and recruitment agencies that you can use for geopgraphical areas. This will give you a good oversight of what’s currently available - this can obviously change and won’t necassarily help you predict the future demand. It will give you agencies to contact who should know their local labour market well enough to help you find work.
There are 38 Local enterprise partnerships (LEP’s) . These are government sponsored organisations that work with local authories. One of their remits is to look at regional economic growth and activity. As part of this, they will often have some useful data/trends that they provide. South East LEP for instance have this information. It can take a bit of interpreting and digging into, but can be useful! Some LEP’s provide the information in easier to understand formats and often have particular occupational areas they are trying to promote.
University careers services - university students will find work during and after their courses regionally, nationally and for some internationally too. Careers services work with employers too, so can be a great source of information about opportunities after further study. They will have lists of vacancies and will know what previous students have done after a particular degree. You may want to apply for something that others haven’t - the staff can help you with this, as well as having a plan B! Not sure if your university as a careers service? AGCAS will be a good starting point for information, as will your university website.
Research by people like Charlie Ball and publications like ‘What do graduates do?’ by Prospects suggests what students tend to do after a particular degree subject. These sources are worth having a look at! The Prospects site has got lots of really good LMI on it too. Not only about the UK opportunities, but internationally too.
National careers service - some really useful information about things like salary, what the job involves and other aspects. There is also information about apprenticeship opportunities too. Whilst this site won’t give you statistics on if a career is in demand or not, it does give a good starting point from which you can then find out more.
CIPD do quarterly surveys looking at how the labour market is doing. This can be useful to have a look at, but it wont give you detailed occupational information.
Companies and organisations websites will often have some good LMI on them. For instance NHS careers, Met police careers and accountancy body ICAEW are just 3 examples of websites with good career information on them. Some of these professional bodies will have international opportunities on them too, including RICS which is the Royal Institute of Chartered Sureyors.
If you are still at school or college, find out if where you are gives you access to software like Fast Tomato, Morrisby, MyFutureChoice or the LMI for all widget. All these will have some great careers and labour market information on them. The LMI for all widget will be embedded on your school website if they have it. If they don’t, its used on the national careers service website, it provides the data used on the site, so isn’t a separate ‘thing’ to look for!
Once you’ve got some information
Once you have had a look at these sites, it is also worth considering some other actions.
Make some connections with people who are working in the industry. Becuase of what they do, they may be willing to share some insights. They could also help you tap into the ‘hidden’ job market. LinkedIn and twitter are both good platforms to use for developing these links.
Think through about the location aspect too. A significant percentage of graduates will either return to their ‘home’ region to work after university, or will stay in their university’s region to work. London is not the ‘be all and end all’ of the UK graduate labour market! A quite regular message from Charlie Ball’s LMI High Peak Data blog, which many HE careers staff will know about.
Talk to a careers adviser, they will be able to discuss routes in, what the industry is looking for qualifications wise and potential future opportunities. You might also be able to find the odd HR specialist who works in the industry you are keen on who might be able to give you some insights too.
Find out about the professional associations and learned societies that cover the area you are interested in. They will be a great source of information too - here’s a useful blog about them, with lists of what they are.
Whenever you have a new career idea, its great to talk to your friends and family about them. Especially when you have lots of enthusiam for a new career idea! Sometimes these family members and friends may not have the most up to date information about the opportunities in the area you are looking at, so be prepared to ‘stun’ them with some stunning information! They will want the best for you, you just may need to show them what you’ve found out, to demonstrate why its a great move - even if its mining engineering opportunities in Canada!
Mark Yates
Member of the Careers Writers Association
