Career Pathway 1 – Decide
Last Updated: August 15th 2024

Career Pathway 1
Decide
From day one it is important to develop your career management skills to help you accomplish your goals and get ahead of the game.
Career pathways are rarely straight forward, you will have many twists and turns along the way. Start by deciding what you are good at and enjoy, your interests and values and how these relate to graduate opportunities.
Below is some information, suggestions and interactive activities, to help you decide.
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The first stage of a career plan is knowing yourself.
- Prospects is the UK’s biggest graduate careers website, take their What jobs will suit me? quizzes, Career Planner or Job Match (5 to 10 minutes).
- Personal tests help you understand how to be yourself at work. Take the 16Personalities test, based on research by Myers Briggs (15 minutes).
- Identify your realised and unrealised strengths through a Strengths Profile. Click on the Free Starter Profile button to register for a ‘personal’ profile (15-20 minutes).
- Understand your ‘careers anchors’, or themes, that help you understand your preferences in a work environment (5 minutes).
- Think about your practical considerations. Can you take time out to do postgraduate study? Do your ideas fit in with your personal commitments?
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It is always useful to see what other students who have studied the same degree as you have gone on to do. Find inspiration from looking at:
- Prospects – What can I do with my degree? and TARGET jobs Degree subjects, my career options.
- My Career Pathways page ‘What Career Can I Do With My Degree Subject?’ provides information about career routes with your specific subject area.
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Studying for a degree gives you many transferable skills and attributes valued by employers. You can:
- Explore job sectors and the opportunities open to all graduates within the different sectors: Prospects Job Sectors and Graduate career sectors: get into top professions.
- Look at student and graduate labour market information through Luminate.
- If you are about to graduate, there is the useful Graduate Employment and Skills Guide, produced by the Office for Students.
- Search companies you might be interested in on LinkedIN.
- Explore graduate schemes which are an excellent way to start to develop your career and gain progression. You might want to look at:
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Test out your career ideas by doing workplace experience, preferably at graduate level, during or after your degree.
This builds confidence that you are heading in the right direction, whilst developing knowledge and skills. It also develops your network and shows you have a strong work ethic. All things graduate employers value.
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If you are a current student or recent graduate from a level 5 course or above, please access your unique personalised careers experience on My Career account.
You can log in by using your Newman username and password or register as a graduate if it is within 3 years of completing your course. You can:
- Book one-to-one guidance appointments and progression coaching appointments.
- Book on to a variety of workshops and careers events.
- Access information and resources through Pathways and Careers Discovery area.
- Link to Shortlist.Me, our practice interview simulation platform with other strengths based quizzes, employer activities and assessment centre tasks.
- Complete a Newman Volunteering Award, offered at bronze, silver, gold and platinum level. It validates volunteering not accredited elsewhere on your programme of study.
- Access opportunities for part-time work, volunteering, workplace experience and graduate jobs.
- For more information, please email: careers@newman.ac.uk.
We hope you found this page useful to think about your career journey. If you want to now to talk to a member of the Careers team at Newman, you can book your appointment through My Career or email us with any questions at: careers@newman.ac.uk.
When you have decided and are ready, you can move on to the Plan stage.