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Take some time out for yourself!How often are you actually encouraged to spend time thinking about yourself? Not often! Well this is your chance! This article is about Self Assessment and is another important job seeking / careers skill that you need to work on. Although self-assessment is an important skill for every day life, it
can be useful when you are looking for a job. |
Ok! It may or may not have been a desperate urge to play the bassoon. It might have been pokemon cards (remember them!), skateboards or ballet lessons! Think back to when you were younger and all of those mad crazes you were convinced you wanted to take up. Did you think much before nagging your mum into buying you all the gear? Probably not! It's really easy to be over enthusiastic about making a decision to start something new, without really thinking it through!
It's the same with careers. You may have ideas about what you want to do. It's
great if you do, it means you have started to plan your career. But have you
really thought about yourself and everything that is involved in that job /
career? Don't decide to become a doctor because you like the look of George
Clooney or a Retail Assistant because the girl in your favourite shoe shop keeps
smiling at you! Self-assessment helps you look at the type of jobs you might
be interested in and the type of jobs that might be right for you - For the
RIGHT REASONS!
It is really important that you 'match' careers with yourself. This means looking at your own interests, skills, personal and financial needs, qualifications and education. You need to ask yourself questions like: -
What do I like doing in my spare time?
What sort of things am I good at?
What ideas have I had about different types of jobs?
What qualifications do I have / am I likely to get?
Do I want to stay in education after GCSE's / A Levels etc?
Do I want to go to university / college?
Do I want a job with training?
Do I want promotions in my choice of job?
Do I want to work with certain types of people or non at all?
How much money do I want to earn?
Do I like working outside or inside?
There are lots of other questions that will be helpful for you to think about. It is a good idea to write down your questions and answers so that you start to build a picture of yourself. Once you have a better understanding of who you are and what you want, you will then be able to look at different jobs more efficiently.
For example :-
You always fancied becoming a teacher. If a question is :-
Q : Do you want to carry on in education after your GCSE's
A : Not really, I've had enough!
Then teaching might not be for you. You will need to continue in education to get the relevant qualifications to become a teacher.
However, if your next question is:-
Q : Do you like helping people to understand and learn new skills
A : Yes
Q : Do you like spending time with people?
A : Yes, I love helping out in my local community group.
Then you could also consider other jobs in education, careers advice or possibly getting onto a training scheme as a classroom assistant.
I know these examples seem a bit obvious, but they should get the point across. You need to think about lots of different things before plunging into the major decision of career choices. If you don't ask yourself these questions, you are not going to find the jobs most suited to your needs. You could spend months working towards the wrong qualification or miss out on other job opportunities that would suit you better.
Remember. It's not just about choosing a career. When you start applying for
jobs / courses, you will be able to use most of the information from your self
assessment to complete your application forms, CV's, college applications and
interviews. They will all involve questions like 'What are your skills' or 'Hobbies
and Interests' or 'Tell us about yourself'. So you can use this later down the
line to help you further!
Sometimes it is difficult to think about self-assessment questions so why don't you have a chat with family and friends about their jobs and why they decided to choose their careers. Some will tell you about the reasons (self assessment questions) that were important to them. Others might say 'I needed the money and it was the first job that I applied for'. You can learn from this and make sure you are happy with your choices! Once you've started to make some notes, if you get stuck, go to your local Connexions Centre and speak to an adviser. They may also be able to show you some computer software that asks lots of questions about you and helps match some careers with your results.
THINK ABOUT IT!
YOU will have to spend 37 + hours a week doing YOUR job
Make sure that YOU are going to be happy in the job that YOU choose!
It's up to YOU!
Support 4 Learning - The National Association of Managers of Student Services site has a page for Self Assessment
http://www.support4learning.org.uk/jobsearch/assess.htm
BBC Learning Zone - Skills for Work
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/lzone/newbusiness/skills.htm
Good Luck
Jennie Glitherow
At school or college? Look out for Jennie's future articles which we'll have
here for the first Monday of each month, and which we'll link to the best sites
we can find on the Web. Why not bookmark us now?
To get back to this page to use the links on it - enter http://www.careers-gateway.co.uk/mainpage.htm
and click on Magazine then It's all about ME!!
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