Career planning

[clarabellabella]

Basically, I would like advice on how you go about this. I'm still pretty early on in my career, but would like to know how people have gone about this. My parents are not the sort to do this (my mother was a teacher, and was basically in it for the benefit of children, not to become head) so I do not really have any examples around me. I did ask my former boss to act as a mentor (though she hasn't responded).

How on earth do you go about this? It seems like I've managed to get through the early stages, University, deciding on a career, taking on a small alteration to career, and so on ... but I don't know where/how to go from here.

bump

Thanks PuzzYuleLogs for the bump.

Ironically, I have just received an email from someone I work with (at a different organisation) asking about jobs/careers in my area. And here I am clueless. Strange

I think it varies really - for one thing not all the jobs which people do have anything like a career structure, and for another not everyone tries to plan where they are heading.

Does your work area have a structure to it? If so, is it just a straight progression or are there branches where you could specialise in different aspects of it? What aspects of your job do you like and want to do more of? Are there training courses, chances to get accreditation, etc?

I'm in IT and there are ways to get qualifications and accreditation, which may help to move into higher level jobs. But at the same time, I work in the public sector and it's a matter of what jobs come up at the next level up, more than a long term plan of where you'd like to end up, that gets you a career.

There is progression (as in, different grades) but I effectively landed in my position, rather than choosing to go into this area, thus, I feel I don't really know options there are. My job effectively did not really exist before 9/11 but is growing in prominence. At present, there is limited scope for progression in this particular area, though it would be possible to branch out into related fields. I'm doing training internally (which could be used for my job and other related ones).

I think the hardest thing is having to just wait and see. The job market is terrible at the moment, so it would be pointless trying to move.