Don't Know What You Want To Do?
Introduction
Choosing what to do can be intimidating. It can also be seriously interesting. This page has some links to career decision making programs followed by some approaches or methods for decision making. The ideas are grouped in themes and the themes are not in any particular order. Don’t feel intimidated by the number of suggestions; the logic is that different methods will work for different people. Have a read through and then have a go at as many as you think will be useful for you. For individual careers guidance come and see us.
Programs
Prospects Planner
An excellent program for creating a careers profile of your interests, skills and motivations. It will also give you some career suggestions based on your profile. Access is through Prospects.ac.uk (you'll need to register there first): www.prospects.ac.uk/links/pplanner
Programs which produce lists of careers after analysing your responses inevitably throw out some slightly odd suggestions. The value of Prospects Planner is to encourage more scope in your thinking - you may not realise how many careers are open to you. The profile element is also very useful to reflect back on your preferred skills, motivations and interests - you can bring it along to a careers appointment.
Ideas Generator
The Careers Group at the University of London have designed an ideas generator for the South East region, where, based on the degree you have undertaken, it lists the jobs that recent graduates are involved in. The most popular jobs are listed first and it includes which companies employ them and what you can expect to earn www.london.gov.uk/graduates.
Career Management Skills
Very useful interactive program to help analyse skills, reflect on interests and motivations. It can also be used to develop an effective CV. Click here to use Career Management Skills Online. Available on the University network only.
Personality Assessment
How would you describe yourself? It's a question often asked at interview. Understanding your personality can also be useful to factor-in to any thinking about career choices. The MBTI model is used across the globe and is recognised as a useful tool to evaluate personality traits. Although not directly connected to career choice (you'll find introverts and extroverts in just about every occupation) this kind of assessment can be very useful as an aid.
Try the BBC assessment based on the MBTI model - used in August 2004 on the programme 'The Personality Test': www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/whatamilike/.
http://keirsey.com/ a North American site offering free assessment. You have to register with an email. They will also encourage you to pay for a second, more detailed assessment.
Windmills
Career management programme built around seven tactics and incorporating decision making: www.windmillsonline.co.uk.
Approaches to deciding what you want to do
Approaches you can use to help with decision making are listed below:
Specific thinking tools
These are general tools that can give some structure to your thinking.
Three Stage Model
Nothing like getting down to basics. Get your perfect career in three easy (?) stages:
- What do you want to do?
- What's stopping you?
- What are you going to do about it?
Double Funnel < >This is a linear idea going from left to right. The first cone (<) is to open ideas out with wide-range, open thinking, brainstorming approach. The second cone (>) is when you have generated ideas and themes, looked for connections and initiated some research. At this point you switch to closing-in mode. Start to narrow-down and home in. The extreme points of the cones depict ‘clueless' on the left 'perfect job' on the right.
Another exercise: draw two large cones <> on a sheet of paper. Then try and position yourself (draw a vertical line) between the two points of the cone. Often, people who think they are clueless on career ideas are actually some way into the first funnel.
PMI
Take any jobs / careers that you've considered and do the PMI. Do an A4 page for each one with three columns with headings: positive, minus, interesting. Get as many responses down as you can for each.
Six Hats
Nothing to do with Harry Potter, this is a brilliant thinking / decision-making model from Edward De Bono. Take a theme such as a particular career or sector and apply the six hats criteria. If the idea of hats bothers you just think of it in terms of colours.
- White: Information, what facts do you need
- Red: Emotions, feelings, intuition – what do you feel about this
- Black: Judgment, caution etc. Will it work? Yes but…
- Yellow: Advantages / benefits, how it would be good
- Green: Looking at alternatives, variations, looking at it differently
- Blue: Thinking about thinking, controls all the other hats
Personal interests and motivations
These are all connected to approaching career decision making in the context of your likes and motivations. They encourage you to think about what you like to do and what you're good. The aim is then to think about the sorts of jobs that incorporate these elements.
Interests
Choose something you enjoy doing and generate a list of occupations that are connected to it. For example, if you enjoy written communication how could you earn a living from writing, teaching others to write, selling written material, promoting it etc?
Your Style
What sort of information and skills / techniques / know-how do you pick up easily? How could this relate to careers?
Role Models
Think about other people who interest you - their lives and biographies. What achievements, aspirations and themes attract you?
Your Profile
Be ruthlessly honest in your thinking. Try and articulate exactly what makes you tick, what you have enjoyed doing and what you want to avoid. Make sure you are aware of any influences and pressures to go in a particular direction. It's your life etc.
Retrospective Thinking
Think back on jobs and other activities you've done. What were the highlights / interesting bits / bits to avoid etc.
Jigsaw Method – job construction
Design the job piece-by-piece. What sort of: pay; terms and conditions; skills you would use; work environment; activities; level of responsibility; status; commitment; and satisfactions etc are you looking for? You can then start to assemble these to see what your career might look like.
People
One area to consider is who you work with either directly as colleagues or as clients / customers. Or do you want to work pretty much on your own? Many professions and employing organisations have their own ‘culture'. Think of hospitals, blue-chip international firms, small media companies, the police force; they all have different approaches and social cultures. You can look at them from the point of view of ‘would I want to be part of this type of social environment, would this inspire me?’ As always these ideas need to be tested-out. Stereotypes can be misleading and your assumptions could be plain wrong (or maybe all police stations are like Sun Hill)...
Reverse Engineering - Job Deconstruction
Take a job that interests you or that you've done and unpick the elements that excite you. Can those elements be transferred to other jobs?
Other parts of your life
Your career is only one part of your life. These approaches encourage you to look at work in this context and to then see if it helps you to rule things in or out. It is not just connected to thinking about how your decisions are limited, but also about really considering the things you see as barriers and assessing if there are ways around them.
How does work fit in?
Describe where work / career fits into other areas of your life. How much time, effort etc do you want to put in? What kind of commitments do you have? What other things are important and how do they affect you career-wise?
Limitations
Work around available options – particularly if you have a clear geographical base. What can you do? What sorts of sectors exist and which ones might interest you?
Barriers
Watch out for personal blocks. These are where you rule out particular career ideas or options before you have even considered them because you feel you are not suitable in some way: not qualified, too introverted, too young, too old, too small, too quiet, too loud, lacking experience or skills etc. There are usually ways round most barriers if you are motivated enough and prepared to be creative. Often they are not barriers at all, they could just be excuses for avoiding a challenge or ways of deferring on your decisions.
See the Prospects web site section on issues around equal opportunities: www.prospects.ac.uk/equal_opportunities.htm
Networking and trialling ideas
Decision making can become more of a real process if you try out the ideas you have. Reading about careers and thinking about yourself is useful but you'll only get a feel for things if you try them out or talk to people who do the jobs.
Networking
Identify people in jobs that you can talk to and make enquiries of. Find out more about types of jobs / sectors / career histories. Friends, family, friends of family, friends of friends, people you know through jobs, sport, worship, performing arts, voluntary work etc. You can gain further experience and develop contacts (everyone you meet is a potential contact and source of further contacts).
Talking to people in jobs
Talk to people in professions and roles – even ones that don't interest you. What do they get out of it? How did they get in? What are the challenges etc?
Trial (and error)
Try ideas out. Any inclinations can be taken to a new level by contacting relevant employers and organisations to get some work-experience or take advantage of the volunteering programme at Chichester. Even a few days can make a big difference to gain insights. You can't lose - negative experiences help to clarify what you want to avoid.
Expanding ideas – thinking beyond job titles
Thinking in terms of job titles can work but it can also be limiting. In smaller organisations or companies there may not be defined job titles anyway. Deciding on a sector can be a useful starting point and the basis for further research.
Expand Ideas - Connect
Take career ideas you are interested in or have considered and grow them. Look for connected careers either through the sector or through the role. Job listings under ‘Explore types of jobs' in Prospects website have a section called ‘related jobs' where you can hot-link to the suggested professions: www.prospects.ac.uk/links/occupations
Ignore job titles - go for sectors
You can try avoiding job titles (then tend to mean less and less these days) and go by sector. Think of a sector or two that you gravitate towards e.g. media, sport and leisure, cultural, education, publishing etc. and start to look at the types of organisations, roles, conditions, entry routes etc. There are some excellent online sector briefings written for graduates on the Prospects website. We have free print copies available at the Careers Centre in New Hall if you prefer: www.prospects.ac.uk/links/sectorbs
Multi-skilling and the death of the profession
Do you want a clear-cut career identity? In many smaller or medium size employers (SMEs) job descriptions may be less important. Staff in many of these organisations do a bit of everything and may have several specialist roles. We are moving in the age of multi-skilling. An example would be TV reporters on location who set-up their own equipment, walk round the front of the camera and do their broadcast and transmission. In the recent past there may have been up to five people involved in this operation.
Consider everything
These are some more general techniques that could help you to generate ideas.
All the people you know...
List everyone you know in a different job (if you can ask them what else they have considered and add those to the list). Highlight the most interesting careers.
Browsing
Use a directory such as Occupations (annual careers publication in careers library) or the Yellow Pages and pick out ten headings / titles that interest you. Also research what's out there (local and national) and what jobs / opportunities are available for graduates – browse and consider. Apply some of the other tests.
Create a CV
Do a CV without thinking about a particular career – draw out skills / experience / achievements / interests etc. What does it tell you? Use the Career Management Skills online exercises (see above) to get started. See us to get direct feedback and guidance.
Set Targets
Set deadlines and targets. Break the activity down. Get a diary or notebook and write ‘My Brilliant Career' on the cover to structure your career planning. No ideas at all? Give yourself a period of time to consider just about anything, do research and explore ideas in an open way (as in the ‘funnel' approach).
Use the degree
...in a creative way. Audit what you are doing in your course – skills / achievements / interests / subject areas / knowledge / projects / techniques / personal qualities. Nearly 50% of graduates go into careers that are not directly related to their degree.
Pre-history
What did you want to be when you were younger? What did parents or close family think you should be? Was there anything in them? What do you think of those ideas now?
Desperation
Ask everyone you know for ideas for what you could do? Borderline desperate but sometimes you get some interesting ideas - people can see you in all sorts of different (sometimes unexpected) ways.
Accidental Careers
Keep and open mind and don't try and plan everything. Look for the unexpected opportunity or new ideas. When people talk about their careers they often highlight the importance of the accidental or circumstantial element that gave them a new insight or opportunity.