Graduate career readiness: Decide

Narrowing down your choices

By this point you should have started looking at Options with Your Degree, have looked at Job Profiles in Prospects, and might have used Prospects Career Planner.  

This will have given you quite a few job ideas. Here are some self-help guides to use to compare your ideas and start to see which look most appealing:

• Thumbs Up - a light touch way to see which of your initial list of career ideas look promising.
• Personal Construct Theory - comparing and contrasting a basket of career ideas to work out what matters for you.

Making a decision between choices

Making a choice will help clarify your thinking and enable you to take actions to test out your idea. Once you know what career you aim for, you can start to focus your efforts on how to get into it as well. But remember, it's OK to change your mind later, as this is all part of the learning process.

You may need to think back to your values, beliefs and priorities as explored in these self-help guides:

• Unique Me - identifying your values, interests and characteristics that form your authentic self.
• Best Possible Future Selves - imagining yourself in a future life using a creative writing exercise.

Here are some self-help guides to firm up your thinking:

• Find the Fit - a deep-dive into how well your career ideas fit with what you want from a job.
• Must Have Decision Making - using your essential requirements to make a career decision.
• Head and Heart - how to listen to your emotional and thinking side when deciding what career to choose.

If you need further help, why not book a confidential Careers Guidance Appointment

Still feeling stuck?

If you feel stuck, don’t worry, It’s not the end of the world. It shows you’re taking the issue seriously and that you really want to sort things out, which are all positives.

The Careers Service loves helping people who feel stuck, so why not book a confidential Careers Guidance Appointment?

While feeling stuck can be due to many different things, there are some common causes. We've listed these, along with relevant self-help guides:

Not knowing enough about a career

• Try using Informational Interviewing - how to contact people for inside advice on careers.

Feeling you need to know everything about a career

• Try The Sea of Unknowing - which shows it's not possible to know everything.

Worried you are committing to a career for life

• Careers Without Fears - reframing career decisions to make them less threatening.
• Camper Van Career Choice - using a temporary career decision to unblock your situation.

Feeling pulled in different directions

• Eye of the Storm - examining the different messages from society about what your career 'should' be like.
• Expectations Under the Microscope - using your values as a 'touchstone' to test the different careers people expect you to do.

Lacking confidence

• Confidence Clarifier – taking an issue and working out which parts you feel confident or unconfident about.
• Imposter Issues - positively managing feelings about being a fraud / not fitting in.

Finally, as a last resort try Three-minute Decision Making – how to make a really quick intuitive decision when all else fails.