Future Planning

TASK 1 – What are YOUR unique skills?

A skills audit will help you establish what skills and attributes you already have as well as areas you may need to develop in order to plan your future and become highly employable. Most people find it very difficult to highlight their strengths or even underestimate the value of the experience they have.

1. Complete the Enterprise Catalyst Skills Audit which can be found at: https://www.enterprisecatalyst.co.uk/

  • Type Enterprise Catalyst in Google
  • Select ‘I am in further education or training’
  • Create your own profile
  • Complete the questions
  • Print off / save the final feedback report which highlights your personal skills, qualities, attributes and any areas you may need to develop. Your audit might be the basis for what team you may be put in for the Enterprise Activity (Task 2).

You might have completed this already, if so just refer back to your results

2. Complete your A4 Pen Portrait

Having a digital presence is crucial to improving one’s career prospects. Now that most employers operate online, virtual resumes are a must for job seeking students! Online CV’s can easily highlight your skills and experiences. Hard copies of CV’s are becoming outdated – most employers don’t want to keep them lying around their offices and prefer a more accessible means of selecting candidates. A Pen Portrait is literally an A4 page that highlights your main skill and experiences and gives a flavour of the type of person you are (see below).

You are going to have to ‘show off’ your digital literacy skills here and come up with innovative and inventive ways of presenting yourself. Here are some ‘rules’ you can follow;-

  • Always write in the third person i.e. Who is Bonnie Jones – ‘Bonnie Jones is a confident, enthusiastic, and inspiring individual who always strives for excellence’ rather than ‘I am confident, enthusiastic and inspiring and I always strive for excellence’
  • You cannot exceed the A4 size limit, however if you have good digital literacy skills you could include links etc. that can be clicked to include more detailed information.
  • What you claim needs to be evidence based e.g. you cannot just say I am a good team player without stating where you have demonstrated this skill.
  • Your Pen Portrait needs to be innovative and creative so check out some online digital tools, such as;-
  • Google Creative CV
  • Infogr.am – This tool creates infographics out of your details creating a very visual presence.
  • About.me
  • Populr.me
  • Accredible

TASK 2 – Where are you going?

Many people are ‘unsure’ about what they would like to do in the future. With 1000’s of possibilities it can be difficult to narrow it down. If you are unsure you will need to complete the SPARTAN Quiz which can be found on http://sacu-student.com/?page_id=2850 

1. Simply click on the yellow ‘Access Spartan Test’ icon and follow the instructions. Spartan uses a complex algorithm to assess your skills, interests and preferences. It will give you some ideas about what types of job might match your preferences and skills – give it a go!! 

When it comes to identifying the right pathway to a career, there is much preparation to do and many decisions to be made.

 2. Identification of two potential career pathways and identification of specific skills, attributes, experience and qualifications required for the 2 careers;