Category Archives: Career Management

Career decisions: assessing what’s important to you

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We all want different things from a career / job.  Some people want to earn lots of money, some to have a good life-work balance, some to feel they are making a difference to society, some to be constantly challenged, and others may want all of those things and more. Reflecting on what’s important to you in a job and how this fits into the rest of your life can help you to make good career decisions and find job satisfaction.

Many of you will be working alongside your studies but may be hoping further study will help you to progress in your career.  The Wheel of Life is a tool which can help you to take stock of where you are now in your career and where you want to be.  Think about the significant factors for you in career.  In the illustration below we’ve chosen doing something worthwhile, finding challenge in a job, the status a job role gives you, the amount of travel you do for work, using the knowledge gained through study, and achieving work-life balance.  Some of these things may be important to you but you’ll come up with your own list.

Wheel of life - what's important Draw your own Wheel of Life.  For each factor that is significant for you, plot on the wheel from 1 – 10 (where 1 is low and 10 is high) how far you are expending energy current role (as a student or as an employee) is satisfying these needs.  Then do it again to show where you would like the relative levels to be for each factor.  Remember that sometimes you need to make choices in a career so choosing 10 for each of your key factors is probably not going to be realistic; you need to consider how important each factor is and where you are willing to compromise.  Once you have a visual representation of this you should start to see where you would like to make changes in your life / career.  Then it’s up to you to consider how you can make those changes!

If you’d like to discuss any of this with a careers consultant please make an appointment via the link below.

Talk to a careers consultant

Communicating effectively

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CommunicationThere are many different theories or tools which can help us to understand the way in which we communicate and the impact this may have on others.  Obviously effective communication can be a key feature of good career management.  Some of the ways in which good communication can have a positive impact on career are:

  • communicating what you are gaining from postgraduate study to a current employer (or at interview for a new job)
  • making sure a manager is aware of the contribution you are making to the goals of the organisation you work for
  • building a strong network who can keep you up to date with news and information relevant to your field or link you in to interesting experiences

and there are many more!

I came across something called Wilson Learning’s Social Style model recently which states that there are four main communication styles.  The types are:

Expressive – strengths are open, friendly, enthusiastic, and imaginative.  Communicate with them by:

  • Supporting their views
  • Socialising
  • Talking about people issues
  • Asking for opinions
  • Offering personal incentives
  • Supporting their ideas

Amiable – strengths are supportive, patient, and diplomatic.  Communicate with them by:

  • Beginning with a personal compliment
  • Highlighting people issues
  • Finding common ground
  • Being open and candid
  • Asking “why?” questions

Analytical – strengths are thinking, thorough, and disciplined.  Communicate with them by:

  • Being prepared
  • Acknowledging their expertise
  • Giving credentials
  • Discussing pros and cons
  • Sticking to business
  • Giving more specific evidence

Driver – strengths are independent, decisive, and determined.  Communicate with them by:

  • Being clear, specific and brief
  • Presenting facts
  • Being logical
  • Providing alternatives
  • Focusing on results
  • Asking “what?” questions

The theory says that individuals are much more likely to communicate effectively with people who have the same style.  However, understanding how different people like to communicate, and making changes to your approach accordingly, may help increase the impact of your communication.  You may not recognise which of these four types you, or others, are but that doesn’t mean you can’t incorporate some of the ideas into your communication.  It’s something to think about!

If you’d like to find out more, and decide if you agree with the model, go to the Wilson Learning website.

Telling stories about yourself

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stack of books

There are many stories we could tell about our lives – what’s the story of your career?

The narrative approach to careers is about telling your career ‘story’ or narrative in order to understand yourself and make sense of your career. Your career story is your personal perspective on your working life including the objective facts, subjective emotions, attitudes and goals of your career. You could tell your career story verbally or by writing it down.

You create your career story retrospectively as a means of determining and explaining the meaning of day to day events in your life. The basic principle behind the approach is that by telling your story you can get a sense of how you’ve got where you are and how you understand your situation. When you make career choices you don’t separate these from the rest of your life; the decisions that you make are influenced by and grounded in your prior experiences and if you can tell your story it can help you to understand your concept of ‘career’ and what is possible.

The narrative approach is about more than just telling your career story though. When you tell your story it can sometimes seem disconnected, complex and difficult to make sense of. The narrative approach is about reflecting on your story, looking for clues, themes and patterns that emerge. These themes and patterns can become the basis of future stories and career possibilities. Within the narrative approach there are many questions that you can ask yourself to help you make sense of your story and to consider future possibilities. These questions can be grouped into three levels:

Level 1 – information about content and experience. This level is about getting all the details of your career story. Questions to ask yourself include: · What did you do? · What was most satisfying? · Was there anything similar about your experiences? · What skills and knowledge did you use? · What did you do to get yourself to that point?

Level 2 – connectedness and subjective experience. This level is about considering the connections between your individual experiences and the various influences on your story. Questions to ask yourself include: · Where else in your life has this been relevant? · How do you interpret that experience? · How would you explain that? · What have you learnt about yourself as a result? · What does it say about what you are capable of?

Level 3 – identification of themes and patterns. This level is about helping you to understand the important themes and patterns from your past narrative in order to help you construct a future narrative. Questions to ask yourself include: · Are there any common themes running through the experiences you have described? · What do you think will be most significant for you in moving forward? · What will be the essential components of any future options for you? · How does your understanding of your past make you view your future? · How could you move this story forward?

You can find out more about the narrative approach to careers guidance in the International Handbook of Careers Guidance or by reading Career Counselling: A Narrative Approach by Larry Cochrane

Making it easier to have confident conversations

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In a previous post my colleague Darcey talked about the importance of learning from conversations.  While we know this is important for good career management sometimes it can be difficult to have constructive conversations with others.  For many (but not all) of you as distance learners, conversations with a current employer could be an important part of successful career management.

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Where do online students go for careers support?

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online surveyYou may remember that the Careers Service asked you to complete a survey on careers support for online distance learning (ODL) students a few months ago.  It produced a few interesting results about what you are thinking so we thought we would share an overview with you.

Who you go to for careers support

When asked who you go to for your careers support, most common choices were your professional network (70% of you said you used this frequently or occasionally), friends and family (65%) and work colleagues (62%).  This is really common and rightly so.

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Talking shop – learning from conversations with colleagues

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As an idiomatic phrase, ‘talking shop’ has probably never had a pleasant connotation. Think of those  people who can’t let work go at non-work events; or situations or organisations where lots of talking takes place but no decision is ever made and nothing gets done.  Talking shop or professional conversation, to give it a more scholarly gloss, is an invaluable – and often overlooked – source of learning and development in our careers.

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