Introduction to how to choose a

career
You cant connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking
backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You
have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.
Steve Jobs
Many students don't have much time to spend in career planning during their degree
course. You may be too busy working to earn money to pay your way through
university, or perhaps you are a mature student with a young family that you need to
support. You may be too busy to regularly visit the Careers Service. These pages will
allow you to do much of this career planning via the web.

First let's look at what factors go into choosing a

career:

Choosing a career involves 4 main stages:

Self Awareness

Opportunity Awareness

Decision Making

Taking Action

Sometimes these stages will overlap and sometimes you have to return to a previous
stage Be aware the cycle is not always as linear and consistent as it is presented here.

Self Awareness

The first stage of Career

Choice is Self Awareness.
This involves looking at
your SKILLS, VALUES,
INTERESTS and
PERSONALITY and
analysing where your
strengths and
weaknesses lie. This is
important both in
choosing the right career
and also for success in
applications and
interviews where you will
find many questions
which test whether you
have been through this
process.
You can start with looking at
your SKILLS here. You can now also look at
your INTERESTS , VALUES and PERSONAL
STYLES on the web.

A major recruiter of graduates,

annoyed with the great expense of
running their annual graduate
recruitment programme, decided on a
radical new approach to save money.
When the student arrived for
interview they were taken to a room
with just a table and two chairs. They
were then left alone for two hours for
two hours, without any instructions.
At the end of that time, the HR
manager went back and see what the
student was doing.

If they had taken the table apart,

they were put in Engineering.
Once you have done some preliminary self
If they were counting the cigarette
analysis, the next stage is to gather
ends in the ashtray, they were
information on the opportunities open to
assigned to Finance.
you. There is a range of resources to help you If they were waving their arms and
here:
talking out loud, they were detailed to
Consulting.
If they were talking to the chairs, HR
There is a range of general careers
talks each term which are listed here was a good location.
If they were sleeping, they were
There may also be specific careers education
definitely top management material.
programmes for your degree subject, usually
If they were writing up the
during your second year of study.
experience, they were sent to the
Technical Publications team.
Information on what you can do with
If they didn't even look up when you
your degree subject
Many jobs are open to graduates of any degree enter the room, they were allocated
subject, and it's important not to only focus on to Security.
the jobs related to your degree, but if you are If they tried to tell you it's not as bad
as it looks, they were assigned in
doing a vocational degree, or simply want to
find out what previous Kent graduates in your Marketing.
If they were wearing green
subject have gone on to do, the following
sunglasses and need a haircut, IT was
resources should help.
their niche.
If they mentioned what a good price
we got for the table and chairs, they
were sent to purchasing.
If they mentioned that hardwood
furniture does not come from
rainforests, Public Relations would
suit them well.

Opportunity Awareness

What can I do with my degree in ......? information on careers from all Kent
degree subjects.

Careers open to graduates with any degree subject

Early in your course you should look at the Work Experience open to you. As well as
allowing you to earn money, they may allow you to gain relevant skills and perhaps an
insight into the types of job you are interested in, putting you at the head of the queue
when you eventually apply for jobs.
The Careers Information Room has a wide variety of booklets, reference files, books,
DVD's and computer programmes you can use.
You may like to enter Postgraduate Study instead of directly entering a job, or it may
be required for a particular career such as law or teaching. Here it may be important to
apply early in your final year and to look at whether funding will be available to pay for
the course.
INFORMATION FOR SPECIFIC GROUPS
We try to cater for all Kent students whatever their
needs: Mature Students, Students with
Disabilities, International Students,Ethnic Minority
Students, Women Students. Sometimes this may affect
your career choice - for example, mature students often
enter public sector jobs and the helping careers where
greater life experience may be to their advantage.

Underqualified
Teacher(!)

Bra Fitter

Train Dispatcher

"Career Management Skills" - a profiling and selfawareness booklet for 1st Year students. See our
web version

Tattoo Artist

Slope Watcher

"Postgraduates and Contract Researchers" - a

booklet specifically for these groups. See our Web
version.

Obstacle
Assistant (They
meant optical!)

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKBOOKS

Unusual jobs
entered by Kent
graduates

Making Decisions
The computer programs below allow you to put in a number of factors on what you
want in a career (such as helping others, promotion prospects) and will give
suggestions of possible careers which might match these. Regard these as useful
suggestions rather than gospel truth, but they should bring up some possibilities that
you haven't considered before.
Prospects Planner www.prospects.ac.uk/links/Pplanner is a powerful program to help
you choose a graduate career. It allows you to answer questions about your values and

interests and then to relate these to a database of hundreds of occupations to get

suggestions on appropriate careers.
Alternatively Careers Explorer is a quick and simple program which will also suggest
graduate careers
Talk to graduates already working in your chosen career area. You can use
the Kent Alumni Careers Network to contact a graduate directly. Work shadowing
(spending a day with) a person in the career you are considering is the next best thing
to actually doing a job, to find out what it is
like. If you have done this, you will come
across as much better prepared at
interviews.
Of course, the other important part in
making decisions is discussing it with
other people. Friends, family and tutors can
all play an important part here . The Duty
Careers Adviser is available every day
without an appointment for a short
discussion and can often help to inject reality
into your ideas for example, pointing out that
you may need to fund your way through a
postgraduate course to enter your chosen
career.

Taking Action
This is the final process of career planning. It involves:

Finding out about the EMPLOYERS that offer the types of jobs you are
interested in.

Search our VACANCY DATABASE

Preparing APPLICATIONS and attending INTERVIEWS

Perhaps taking APTITUDE TESTS and attending SELECTION CENTRES

First look at the Timeline, which gives you an idea of what you should be doing when
during your time at UKC in terms of Career Planning.
Sometimes you may have to return to previous stages in the process, for example, if
you are not able to get into your first choice career
.

I was lucky I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my
parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown
from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000
employees. We had just released our finest creation the Macintosh a year earlier,
and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company
you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented
to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our
visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we
did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out.
What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didnt know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous
generation of entrepreneurs down that I had dropped the baton as it was being
passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for
screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running
away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me I still loved what
I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected,
but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didnt see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing
that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced
by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to
enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named
Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went
on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the
most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple
bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the
heart of Apples current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family
together.
Im pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadnt been fired from Apple. It
was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you
in the head with a brick. Dont lose faith. Im convinced that the only thing that kept
me going was that I loved what I did. Youve got to find what you love. And that is as
true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your
life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And
the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you havent found it yet, keep
looking. Dont settle. As with all matters of the heart, youll know when you find it.
And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So
keep looking until you find it. Dont settle.
From Steve Jobs address to Stanford University graduates in 200 5