Career advice needed!

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Hi everyone!

My mum is a regular poster and recommended that I start a thread here to see if anyone can give me a bit of career advice.

I am 21 years old and at a bit of loss on what career I would be best suited to. I am in my second last year of university studying History. I would ideally love to work in a career that was either people based, possibly social work or teaching, or creative in some way as I love to read and have always written in my spare time. Social work has always stood out to me as my family are foster carers and we have always worked closely with the council. I am worried, however, as I feel that they tend to have large caseloads and often take sick leave due to stress (in my area anyway). I'm hoping to find an internship, or work experience of some sort, over the summer but I'm still unsure on what I want to do in the future. I have worked in bars/cafes since I was 16 and currently have a job in sales but I know this is not what I am best suited for. I suppose I am wondering if there are any careers that you think I should explore some more? I know I haven't given much information but I am open to all suggestions!

Thanks so much in advance!

Have you heard of https://thefrontline.org.uk/our-programmes/ you can do a masters in social work. Over two years you get a salary, experience and a masters at the end with no commitment to work in social work if it's not what you want. Contrary to popular belief I know some social workers who love their job it's very under funded but so is the NHS and education. I hope you get some other advice from people!

Hello,

I don't know how useful this will be to you but I didn't want your thread to go unanswered. First thing to do say is do not fret too much about not having a firm career path in mind yet - you are still right at the very start of life and whilst I remember all too well the pressure that is put on young people to know exactly what they want to do after university and the creeping dread that everyone but you has it sussed, it really isn't the case and you have loads of time! In some ways I think it is more of a problem to get fixated on a single career path too early in life, particularly if you don't feel a real passion (as realistically until you do a job you probably won't know what it's really like, plus by being single minded you can miss lots of other opportunities you don't even know are out there yet!). Many of the most happy and fulfilled people I know, career wise, are those who have had no fixed aims and just taken jobs which interested them at the time and/or have changed directions a number of times within their career!

You say you are interested in social work and teaching, those are certainly both paths worth exploring if you would like a people focus (although bear in mind that virtually any job these days requires people skills!). I don't think you'll get anyone coming on here saying either are easy, stress free jobs, both will certainly come with huge responsibility and pressure to get it right because of the potential impact you can have on people's lives, but equally that would be what makes the job extremely fulfilling and satisfying as well. Bear in mind too that both jobs can be very different depending on what path you go down, e.g. teaching in primary/secondary/adults/special needs or social work for children/adults with learning disabilities or vulnerable/elderly etc - so don't think too narrowly at this stage, do some research online into the different kinds of roles there are within the profession as a whole. I think the best thing you could possibly do is try and get some work experience in one of these areas to experience them first hand, obviously over the summer in a school is tricky as it will be holidays but if you already have links at the council perhaps your mum could help you link with a social worker, even if you are not able to shadow them or do much by way of direct work experience they may be happy to have a coffee and honest chat with you about the realities of the work and how you could go about getting work experience.

In terms of other career ideas, if you wanted to think about using people skills/writing skills/creativity in a more corporate role (which although pressured in a different way might be emotionally easier and better paid than teaching, social work), how about thinking about a job in HR focusing on learning and development (so doing things likes helping people develop the skills they need at work, arranging/running courses, managing leadership or talent development programmes etc) or in communications or marketing (which would utilise your writing skills). You can work in these fields in local government, the NHS, the civil service or a charity so it doesn't necessarily have to be private sector/highly corporate environment either. If you think public sector or third sector is where you might like to work then there are various graduate schemes in a whole variety of areas/roles you could look into, happy to share some links if helpful?

Hi!

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply - it was really helpful! Thinking about it, I have been trying to find one career path to focus on. A lot of my friends are doing vocational courses so that may be why I am trying to find a path so early! You are totally right that most people tend to find their jobs along the way and to commit to one job early on would be blocking other jobs out. It's sometimes hard to see that when everyone else seems to be moving so quickly!

Yes, I do think it would be helpful to try and find some work experience in social work. We do have a social worker that we work closely with that I could ask. I have never thought about using my writing in a more corporate role but it is definitely something I would be interested in! I will research the roles you have described. It would be great if you could share some links if possible!

Thank you again for your message! It has definitely helped me see other opportunities that are available!

No worries, glad to be of assistance. So grad schemes wise, I'll give you some public and third sector ones as that's what I am most familiar with, I am sure if you ask your uni careers service or look on thestudentroom forum there are lots of others too. Graduate schemes are great as a managed introduction to work with lots of support, training and the chance to be part of a 'cohort', plus you get to do various different roles within an organisation so a excellent opportunity to find the kind of role you eventually want to do permanently. Of course they do tend to be competitive entry, some of the largest e.g. NHS and Civil Service are hugely oversubscribed. But it isn't all about exam results and who went to the best university, the schemes place a lot of emphasis on potential and leadership/people skills plus good experience and the ability to articulate yourself well so if you have those things you'd stand an excellent chance!

And even if you don't want to go down the grad scheme route, take a look at some of the info on the scheme pages about the types of job the trainees could be doing and see if something takes your fancy, these types of role can be available as direct entry too...

so some links...

The NHS has an excellent albeit highly competitive graduate scheme with various strands including HR:

www.nhsgraduates.co.uk/

The civil service fast stream is highly prestigious and so again competitive, there is the general fast stream and then separate streams for HR, Comms and others

www.faststream.gov.uk/

As you are interested in teaching you might want to look at Teachfirst, I think quite a lot of people do the programme and don't end up teaching or in traditional teaching roles anyway, as the programme gives you a depth of experience

www.teachfirst.org.uk/

CityYear and IntoUniversity are other placement schemes in the education/teaching area: intouniversity.org/graduatescheme

www.cityyear.org.uk/

Local government have a graduate development programme, more tailored towards general and financial management but could be an interesting way in:

www.local.gov.uk/national-graduate-development-programme/about-ngdp

Cancer Research UK is probably the best known/well established grad scheme in the third sector, has various streams including HR and Comms: www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-us/graduates-and-interns/our-streams

Wellcome Trust are also a huge charity and they run a scheme including Comms: wellcome.ac.uk/jobs/graduate-development-programme

I'm not very familiar with this one but CharityWorks have an interesting looking programme which features Comms quite heavily: www.charity-works.co.uk/graduate-programme/

Hope some of these are of interest!