Throughout my university experience, I remember many times ignoring my sense fo inadequacy regarding career preparation. As part of my career management unit, I had to confront the shocking scores of my self-efficacy and digital skills questionnaire. The questionnaires identified where my comfort Zone lies and the things I’ve been avoiding and therefore have to work on. I have to optimise my networking skills, learn ways of using my social media to aid my career readiness and find what the next step in my career is. The scores left me feeling anxious about the future and guilty for not being ready at this stage of my life when it seems like I should off.
While writing this blog I felt especially lost about my career choices, I remembered a TED talk by Adam Leipzig. Leipzing identified that people that were happy in their work knew their life purpose, by knowing 5 key facts about themselves. My focus was on, “Who they were? and what they did?” which helped me explore self-identity and how I would like to contribute through my work. My answer was to choose those things that I find fascinating but often challenging, instead of those that will ensure an “adequate career“. This change of attitude was of great help when choosing my final year units.
Being confined gave me the chance to use resources that I had in my disposition but never had explored. I looked into the services provided by the university and found My Learning Essentials. Which contains useful workshops, about the use of searching engines and social media tools. This drove my attention to LinkedIn and Future learn which presented an interesting way of increasing my digital literacy. I gained access to many online free courses such as how to communicate effectively and confidence building courses and now I have used those to increase my digital literacy skill and my transferable skills.
The questionnaire highlighted my lack of proactivity around my career readiness. Due to the Covi-19 pandemic option to increase my employability and experience in a work structured environment where scares. Linkedin worked great when developing my networking skills form home. I sent a formal message to my LinkedIn contacts through the years and manage to find a tutoring job that I could do from home while still helping those that need the extra academic help the most.
Despite not feeling “career ready” yet, I realised that My Personal growth and my happiness come hand in hand. Now I consider my career identity as a representation of who I want to be instead of choosing what seems more financially adequate. Through the use of my Learning Essentials and Linkedin, I was able to get a good insight into possible career paths and Final year project options. I was able to apply the skills I learnt from the online workshops in my last interview. As a result, I have secured my current tutoring job, which made me feel more prepared for future encounters with the world of work.
