Advice and Guidance
Careers Advice
Three things you need to know
The first thing you need to know about careers advice is that you need to talk to a professional such as your Connexions Careers Personal Adviser but you also need to talk to lots of other people before you make decisions
The second thing you need to know is that knowledge about yourself, your interests, abilities and your aspirations is essential and sites like Fasttomato can help you find out what you might be good at.
The third thing you need to know is that you have to do some research. Gather information about as wide a range of careers and jobs as possible. Your adviser can point you in the right direction, help you focus on possible areas of interest, provide you with information links and resources but only you can gather the information you need.
Here is some useful background information but follow the link to the Careers Portal for more specific information.
Employment sectors are broad areas that include a range of types of industries, businesses and services, e.g. engineering, media and communications, construction etc. Knowing what they are gives a good overview of the way the world of work is structured and a starting point for finding out about careers opportunities
Careers are pathways and they often relate to jobs in a specific employment sector e.g. careers in business, or a sub-set of that employment sector e.g. business administration.
Building up your knowledge of jobs families in an employment sector that interests you is a good way of clarifying how well your own abilities match the skills required for different jobs.