Careers & Employment Opportunities

Know Yourself

"Most people spend more time planning their holiday than their careers."
Peter Hawkins

An essential part of learning how to make career decisions involves careful self-analysis to identify the skills you have or may need and discovering where you want to go in life.This self-knowledge helps expand and then focus on options you are considering and can open up exciting career possibilities you may not have been aware of.

Self-Assessment & Psychometric Tests

We have developed a section on Self-Assessment where you will find information about psychometric tools that can help you in your personal and career development, and about how you can access these and use them effectively. Find out more about:

• Personality and personality testing >>
• Aptitudes and aptitude testing >>
• Learning styles >>>

Prospects Planner is another invaluable tool to find the right kind of job for you! It helps you to:

• generate new job ideas and check out your existing ideas;
• identify your skills and find out what motivates you in a job;
• see how these match the jobs you are considering;
• research your chosen jobs in more detail and decide on the right choices for you.

The Self Awareness Topic of our Career Development Course in Moodle (restricted access) also looks at what you are like, the skills you have to offer employers, the values you have about work to help you find which sorts of careers you would find satisfying.

There are a number of additional resources available in the Career Development Centre to clarify your skills, values, interests and motivations. One of the most popular ones is Peter Hawkin's book "The Art of Building Windmills" which can be borrowed from the John Paul II Library and his on-line version: Windmills Interactive.

Additional on-line resources include:

• Qualifax Interest Assessment
• Career Directions

last reviewed: 17/9/2007

last updated: Friday, 23-Jan-2009 12:38:03 GMT