Careers Research at Home

Along with school-based careers activities, all students are encouraged to complete independent research into the careers they might be interested in. This may help them decide their plans, the career they want, the degree, apprenticeship or other course they want to take and make sure that they are doing all they can now to work towards succeeding in any of these. This research will also help to strengthen a student's CV and ability to complete job/college/university/apprenticeship applications.

If you do not have any ideas about what you want to do as a career:

Start by taking a quiz! There are many different options for this online, below are some ideas to get you started.

Complete the SACU career quiz, which will provide you with a word cloud of options suited to your answers and allow you to research different careers further. You just need to create a free account, and it will save your information so you can view it again later.

All Blue School students from Year 9 onwards have access to Careerpilot. Register for an account at: careerpilot.org.uk/register - or log in using your existing credentials. While you are on the site, you can update your profile with your skills, values, the subjects you are currently taking and much more. You can continue to use Careerpilot for research even after you leave school, so it’s a good idea to check in here regularly and update it every time you have a new achievement or idea about your future.

The National Careers Service website offers a 10-minute skills assessment, and also allows you to investigate different opportunities based on your results. They also run a telephone service which you can use to speak to a Careers Adviser: 0800 100 900. 

If you have an idea of the career you want:

Watch career videos and research more closely what area of that career you want to work in/make a list of companies you would like to work for. There are lots of good places you can find videos about careers you are interested in, including: icould.com/explore, www.careersbox.co.uk/ and the MyPath channel on YouTube.

Look at career websites listed in the document below under Further information. Note down the main skills needed to do the career you are interested in. Think about how you can demonstrate these in your CV, and anything you might be able to do to gain skills you cannot currently demonstrate.

Parents and students are encouraged to contact the Careers Office for pointers about where to start with online careers research and other activities. 

Further information

Please see this document for a list of useful websites to help you making careers decisions. This is updated regularly.