1. WorldSkills UK LIVE Where am I now?

2. What career?
For some people they know from an early age what career they want to have.
For many young people it is one of the hardest questions.
There are so many careers available it can be really difficult to make these big decisions.
….. So where do you start?

3. Understand who you are first
The first place to start is to understand who you are, the things you like and the things you don’t like.
We work for a long time throughout our lives, so doing something that you do not enjoy can really make getting up every morning very difficult.
Take the time to understand yourself and ask yourself these questions -

4. Understand who you are first
What do I like to study, what are my favourite subjects, was there a time in particular that I got really engaged with a subject or a specific topic?
What type of learner am I, do I prefer hands-on learning, or do I like to learn through visual or audio methods?
What about outside of school, am I someone who likes to be moving and kept busy, do I enjoy spending more time alone or with groups of people?
Is there something outside of school that really interests me, like sport, animals, theatre?

5. Use what you know and then find out what you don’t know
There are simply thousands of careers across lots of different sectors. No one person could know all of the options.
But you can start to explore different careers now, the more careers you learn about the wider your understanding and choices will be. It might be that you rule many careers out but you might also find something that really sparks your interest.

6. Use what you know and then find out what you don’t know
To explore different careers you can do any of the following:
Talk to as many employers at WorldSkills UK LIVE as possible
Talk to the people you know, parents, friends, other people in your network and find out about their career and what their job entails
Use websites like the Youth Employment UK Careers Hub where you can explore careers and articles from young people
When you have more information about the different careers you can see if the things you like will be met in that career or if it involves a lot of the things you don’t like!

7. Know where to get help
There are lots of resources and experts around that you can tap into.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help, it’s more common than not that people do not know where to start on choosing their career. That’s why the experts are there!
National Careers Service: an online, telephone or web chat that you can access for free
Your local careers adviser: your school, college or university may have a specialist adviser or you might be able to access support through a local independent adviser
Jobcentre: These are useful places to find out about careers locally to you, who is hiring and how to make contact with them

8. There is no right or wrong way
Whatever career you choose, or even if you cannot decide straight away it is OK.
When you talk to people in your network you will find out that some of them started in very different jobs to where they are now.
Our paths are not always straight, but everyone gets to where they are meant to be.
The world of work is really exciting, start exploring it today!

9. Thank you