Ready or not — here I come
Even though I know where I want my career to end up, I’ve often felt confused about exactly how I’ll get there. What do I need to be doing to prepare myself? How can I prepare for myself? Who should I ask? Will they give me a chance?
My digital capability is not something I often worry about, backed up by my high score in the digital capability questionnaire I completed. I’m comfortable both navigating and computer systems, and feel like I have a good knowledge of the online world. I have no trouble researching and reading careers information online; it’s the putting it into practice that tends to trip me up a bit.
What I do worry about is ‘breaking into’ the career I’m interested in. It’s easy to find information about it but less easy to find people to speak to about it or ways to get experience. I feel that my slight lack of confidence and uncertainty in the skills I possess can make this worse — I find it quite scary to just contact random people to speak to them about my career path, especially as I’m not always sure how to answer the questions about my capabilities that they’re bound to ask. It’s not that I’m incapable, more that I find it very tricky to actually identify the positives about myself and express this; something I need to work on if I’m going to make connections and gain experience in my desired field of work.
This has made me realise that I really need to have more confidence in myself and in the abilities I already have in order to push myself to gain more experience and knowledge. If I can’t do this, then I’ll just end up stuck — which I definitely do not want.
To do this, I need to accept that I have many useful skills and capabilities, and get used to talking about myself in a positive manner, whether it’s in an interview or informally. This will make it easier for me to talk to people about my career and make it more likely that they’ll give me information or help me gain relevant experience. More confidence and more opportunities — a win-win!
