When you make the decision to study towards a degree or diploma you are setting yourself a goal to strive towards – but what happens when you reach that goal? You have your qualification, so what next? How do you shape your career into what you want it to be?
We caught up with Yvonne Gaut from the University of Otago Career Development Centre to discuss this and she has put forward two simple and wise tips that can help you get where you want to go.
Choice
“When we make choices about our careers, we are making choices that will have implications for our work, our learning, our families and our communities”.
Tristram is one of my favourite career professors and I follow his work as he publishes and presents around the world. He investigates how various aspects of your identity, position in society and background will impact on your chance of career success.
Goal = Success
This is a good time to pause and consider what career success means to you. If you don’t know what that is, then you won’t know if you can achieve it. Once you have an idea of career success this can then be a goal. When you have a goal you are able to develop a strategy to work toward.
Take time to dream
#Tip 1. Take some time to dream, talk or draw about what career success will look like to you. It’s a useful idea to have a career journal either a paper one or within a device. Someplace that you can keep a record of your reflections and can return to whenever you feel the need.
How your career develops is not just an outcome of your choices, personality or your course. How the society in which you live is structure and how other people treat you, all have an impact.
Identify barriers
#Tip 2. Identify some of your future barriers. Considering what might hold you back from achieving your goals enables you to work on them before they leave you powerless.
Careers development works at the interface between the individual and society, between self and opportunity, as well between aspiration and realism.
Ask for help
Make use of the career service while it is freely available to you. If you are not sure what you need to ask, talking with a career development adviser can help to clarify your thoughts around your career and provide some ways to consider your future goals.
You can make a time to talk with a career development adviser through OtagoCareerHub or directly contact yvonne.gaut@otago.ac.nz
Career Development Centre – Te Pokapū Umanga | University of Otago – Te Whare Wananga o Otago
IS Building, Albany Street, PO Box 56, DUNEDIN
