When thinking about your future career, it’s important to spend some time building awareness of who you are, focussing on your strengths, experience, skills, and values. This will help you identify which sectors might be a good fit for you.
Who are you?
Reflect on these questions;
- What do you like about your degree?
For example: writing, lab work, creativity, research, team projects
- What are your interests and passions?
For example: science, the arts, literature, computing
- What have you enjoyed about previous roles and experience, including part-time work and volunteering?
For example: you may have enjoyed working with the public or working alone
- What are your strengths and what are you good at?
Try a strengths assessment to reflect on this: Free Strengths Test | Strengths Profile
Another method of self-reflection is to take a personality assessment. These generate an outcome about your personality type, including how you relate to others, your mindset and how you organise yourself. These personality assessments are accessible for University of Manchester students and recent graduates.
Top Tip; It can be hard to know what our skills are without experience to draw on. Consider deepening your self-awareness by gaining more experiences or stepping outside of your comfort zone!
What are your values?
Values are your unique personal principles which help you to define your ideal work environment. Take a look at ‘step 2’ on our webpage and see if any of these values resonate with you. Try ranking them in order of most to least important.
What don’t you like?
While it’s good to know what you think you’ll enjoy, it’s also important to think about what your red flags are, and consider what you wouldn’t enjoy or what might hold you back. We have more advice here under step 3.
What skills do you currently have and what do you need to work on?
Take some time to reflect on your current skillset. Have you completed the inventory on our skills webpage? This will help you assess your proficiency in a range of workplace skills and identify any skills that might need a bit of extra work!
Your next steps and building sector knowledge
Now you have a more detailed picture of yourself, it’s time to explore if there are any skills, experience, or knowledge to fill. It’s important to remember that, whilst undertaking careers research is a great starting point, some of the best insights can be acquired through conversations, developing networks, attending employer events and of course – trying it out! You can also check out our “I Don’t Know What I Want To Do” webpage.
Written by Rebecca Roberts, Careers Advisor and Sophie Coller, Careers Consultant
* This article was originally published here
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