Career planning

Self-awareness is about knowing who you are and what you want. Understanding your interests, values and personal attributes guides your career choices and identifies the kind of work you will find engaging and rewarding. A solid understanding of your skills and attributes will also help you to confidently convey your value to the right employer.

Consider the following factors:

Interests: Think about your recent endeavours (for example, subjects you have studied, work experience, volunteering, travel, sports, arts, hobbies) and the aspects you found most enjoyable. Understanding what holds your interest will steer you towards career options that keep you motivated and engaged.

Values: Your values will often have a significant influence on the kind of work you will find fulfilling. What is important and meaningful to you in life and how might that relate to your career choices? Values that influence people’s career decisions can include helping others, prestige or status, autonomy, intellectual challenge, money, work-life balance, and work environment.

Skills: What are your strengths? Identify and clearly articulate the skills you have developed or utilised during your studies, work, extracurricular activities, volunteering and life experiences. Eg, communication skills from university presentations and resolving customer complaints at your casual retail job.

Personal attributes: Your personality will often inform your role preferences and the kind of working environment that will suit you. Eg, analytical minds may enjoy a role that involves identifying and solving problems, and creative minds may thrive in environments where they can explore new ideas or try different things.

Many graduate employers will consider graduates from any degree subject. Effective research can introduce you to occupations you didn’t even know existed. Consider careers which:

• directly use the specialist knowledge and skills developed through your degree and major(s).
• are related to your degree discipline where some of your specialist knowledge and skills might be useful.
• are unrelated to your degree but use the generic transferable skills you have gained from your studies.

Even if you have decided on your career, find out what else is available as there may be options that you have not yet considered. 

Research career options and occupations: Check out our Further Resources to the right to find out more about different industries and career paths.

Use job search websites as a research tool: Type keywords relating to your industry or interests into a job search portal and see what kind of job titles and employers come up. Aim to simply gain an understanding of the roles in your field and the type of recruiting employers.

Research your industry: Read industry journals or magazines, check news sites for information or new developments in your industry and follow organisations and people of interest on social media. Talk to employers at careers fairs or on-campus information sessions. Check the career resources of any professional associations in your industry and find if they offer any assistance to students.

Talk to people: Draw on the expertise of your networks and discuss your career ideas with friends, peers, colleagues or academics. Consider arranging an information interview with someone who does the kind of work you think you would enjoy. You can also book an appointment with the Careers Centre to discuss your career plans or learn more about your options.  

Try it for yourself: Once you have some career ideas, look for opportunities to gain experience within the workplace through internships, volunteering, industry mentors, work shadowing (observational work experience), or extracurricular activities, eg, managing a budget for a student society (finance/accounting), working on a student consulting project (management consulting) or organising an event (event management).

Once you have figured out your career interests and researched possible career paths, you will start making some decisions about your direction. Some common career decisions include:

• Which industries will I invest time and effort in exploring further?
• What activities will I undertake to develop the right skills?
• Do I want to change my original direction (and should I change my course or major)?
• Do I need to commit to further study?
• Which jobs and organisations should I apply to?
• Which job offer should I accept?
• What is my ‘plan B’ if I don’t get the job I want?

Go about making these decisions through the following steps:

Evaluate your options:  It's common to still feel unsure about your direction. Narrow down your options by:

• asking yourself if a career path reflects your interests, skills and values.
• writing a ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ list.
• talking to your friends and family or a career advisor about your ideas.

Keep in mind that you don't have to have your entire future mapped out by your final year. Many people change their career direction more than once. 

Set some goals: Your next steps will depend on where you are in the career planning process. Goals should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-Bound (i.e. set yourself a deadline). Eg, a student with a strong interest in investment banking may set a goal to expand their networks in the finance field, whereas someone who is still exploring their options may set a goal to talk to professionals in four different industries within the next month.

You’ve set your goals and now it’s time to work towards them! The action you take will depend on what stage you’re at in your career planning: positive actions could be writing a polished application for a graduate job or identifying skills developed during your casual work and adding them to your resume. Even joining a student society or researching career options on the internet can help move your career planning in the right direction.

To get you started, we have designed a road map below to help you use your time at university to the fullest.

This is a time to explore yourself, your career options and the opportunities university life has to offer.

• Build your self-awareness by reflecting on your skills, interests and values. See the Further Resources section above on the right side for helpful links.
• Get involved in extracurricular activities to make friends, gain confidence, develop employability skills, build your network and, of course, have fun! Here is a short list of examples:
  • mentoring, politics, contributing to publications, volunteering, sports, music, arts. You can engage in these activities both on and off campus. Check the clubs and societies you can join for on-campus activities.
  • international opportunities like study abroad and AIESEC.
  • skill-based competitions like hackathons, trading simulations, consulting challenges, coding competitions.
  • internships or placements (check with your faculty).
• Get some work experience – casual, part-time, or voluntary work. This doesn’t have to be related to your degree/discipline at this stage – you will still gain valuable transferable employability skills. Review your resume so you’re ready to apply.
• Come along to Careers Centre events or careers fairs to meet people from different industries.
• Start a careers portfolio – keep a record of your activities and the skills gained. This way you won’t forget what you have done and it'll make preparing job applications easier.

Your middle years at university are a time to build your employability skills, your network and your experience.

• Become familiar with the employability skills that employers value. Analyse the skills you have and identify areas you might need to develop.
• Build on your networks – meet employers face to face by attending events such as careers fairs and employer information sessions. Join and actively engage with professional associations.
• Seek to gain relevant industry-based work experience through internships, vacation work, casual or part-time work.
• Get involved in Careers Centre employability programs like Graduate Edge.
• Develop your employability and career management skills by attending our career workshops.

Here, you should prepare to apply for your next step.

• Review job search strategies.
• Prepare for applying for graduate positions – review your resume and cover letter and be prepared to tailor them for each application.
• Check your online presence – do an audit of your social media, protect your privacy, and optimise (or create if you don’t already have one) your LinkedIn profile.
• Obtain permission for references in advance of applications.
• Do your research on any employers that you are hoping to target – their industry, company culture, their recruitment process and timing.
• Attend careers fairs and employer information sessions and network with employers.
• Apply to any graduate programs you are interested in (be mindful of application deadlines – for some programs these can be early in first semester!)