Stuck for career ideas?
Careers advisers will help you generate ideas, based on your interests, experience and aptitudes. But, just in case you’d like to come up with some ideas without talking to a careers adviser here are some top tips.
Do an online careers quiz! They are there to generate ideas, not tell you what to do. Worth a try, if only to widen your awareness of what the possibilites could be. Here are a few to try, Prospects Planner, NHS Careers and Icanbea.
Take a look around you. The sort of look that actually notices things. What around you sparks an interest? This could be in how something is made (that building, piece of jewellery or fabric), how something has grown (crops or house plants). Your eye might have caught an advert online or graphics content, or in interest in how someone is coping with an injury as they go past you. Whatever has caught your attention, there will be a multitute of careers relating to it!
Talk to your family, friends, work colleagues. Who do they know that does a job they love? Can they introduce you for a coffee in this ‘less locked down’ world?
What subjects most interested you at school? Could they inspire a new career? Why not try googling ‘careers in….’ and see what suggestions come up. Alternatively try the Prospects and National Careers Service websites for good quality careers information. They will take out some of the ‘pot luck’ of just doing a google search! If you have used a careers psychometric testing package like Morrisby or Myfuturechoice (was COA) you may well still have access to these, they will have lots of good careers information linking to subjects on them. If you are still at school/college, you can always ask the teacher in this subject too, or look at the UCAS site for information too.
What do you daydream about? This may give you some ideas - even if you can’t become a diving instructor on the barrier reef, you may be able to find other water based opportunities that could develop the day dream a bit more into a hobby, part or full time job!
What are your hobbies, interests or side hustles? If you are interested enough in a hobby to spend time doing it unpaid, now could be a chance to see if there are any career opportunities in them. And if you have a side hustle, is it going well enough for you to give more time to it, to see if it could become more than a ‘side show’?
Do you volunteer anywhere? This could be the same as above! But it will also cover things like volunteering with the local wildlife trust, church or community group. Could this volunteering spark a ‘calling’ to develop this into a career?
Look on LinkedIn and Twitter. Who do you follow, who is doing a job that looks really interesting, even from afar? Could you get in touch with them and ask them how they got into their role? Usually people are happy to discuss this sort of thing, honestly!
I hope some of these suggestions give you a starting point! And if you want to find out more about how to plan your career, this blog I wrote might help. Alternatively you might have got to the point where having an ‘intentional conversation’, to utilise some careers advice might help.
But for now, to leave you with the most important tip - make a start by doing something! Your new career is out there waiting for you! You just need to actively take the first step in finding it.
Mark
