Episode 4 – Career Planning with Steve Rook

December 12, 2014 Podcast

Welcome to episode 4 of the Graduate Job Podcast!

In this fourth episode, I speak with best-selling careers author Steve Rook as we delve into the topic of career planning. Not sure on the first steps to take, or do you feel like your career isn’t going where you want it to? Then this episode is for you.

You can download the podcast to your computer or listen to it here on the blog. Additionally, you can subscribe via iTunes or Stitcher radio.

MORE SPECIFICALLY IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

  • Where to start your job hunt when you don’t know where to start – 3.12
  • How to break your job search into manageable chunks – 5.01
  • Techniques for researching possible career options –  8.15
  • How to let your core skills direct you to a job – 10.49
  • Tips to ensure your job searching doesn’t drift – 17.02
  • How to utilise your experience effectively – 22.14
  • Postgraduate study, the do’s and don’ts – 22.42

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

  • Check out the ‘How to Get a Graduate Job’ step-by-step online course at https://howtogetagraduatejob.com/
  • Don’t even think about applying for graduate jobs until you’ve read my free guide, ‘The 5 steps you must take before applying for graduate jobs’. Click here NOW. It will completely change the way you apply for jobs!
  • Would you like a free 30-minute video coaching call? Simply select a time that works here https://calendly.com/gradjob/ We can go over your CV, application, or anything that you are struggling with.
  • Assessment Day – One of the top providers of psychometric tests. Click HERE and support the show
  • Career Gym – Use code GJP to get 20% off all of their tests!
  • Job Test Prep – One of the top providers of psychometric tests. Click HERE and support the show
  • The Graduate Career Guidebook (Steve’s excellent book. Check out the 5 star reviews on Amazon – Click image below to buy on Amazon!)

Transcript – Episode 4 – Career Planning with Steve Rook

Announcer: Welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast, your home for weekly information and inspiration to help you get the graduate job of your dreams.

James: Hello, and welcome to the fourth edition of the Graduate Job Podcast. Today I speak with Steve Rook, the bestselling author of The Graduate Career Guidebook as we cover the topic of career planning. Not sure on the first steps on your job hunt, or feel like your career isn’t quite going where you want it to? Then this episode is for you.

A transcript of the episode and links to everything we discuss can be found in the show notes at graduatejobpodcast.com/careerplanning. But , without further ado, lets go straight to episode 4.

James: Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Graduate Job Podcast with your host, James Curran.   Today I’m very pleased to welcome Steve Rook. Steve is the bestselling author of The Graduate Career Guidebook and when he is not writing he’s been a student focused career advisor for over 12 years and has also run his own successful recruitment company.

Steve, welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast.

Steve: Thank you, James. Good to be here.

James: I’ve given the listeners a potted history. Would you like to give us more detail about what you’re doing now and how you came to be a bestselling author?

Steve: Oh, gosh. I’ll start from the beginning. I graduated with a third class degree and I was lucky to get that because I was busy living life and I am autistic and I found it very difficult at university. I applied for a hundred jobs, got 50 rejections and 50 didn’t even bother getting back to me. So I drifted around the world for many, many years. Asia. I emigrated to Australia; lived out there for many years. America. And it was only in my thirties a light went on in my head and I realized, hey, if I want a career I need to take control of things, not just sit back and look for jobs. I need to take control of where I want to go. It’s was really like emancipating for me because it really changed my life. I suddenly realized instead of just looking for a job, I’ve got to take control of developing myself. I did that and I got into teaching and then I set up my own business recruiting people. Then I became a careers advisor. Now I’m writing. And it all flowed from that point where I realized that if I want to go somewhere I can make it happen. I just have to be strategic about making that happen. And because of these desperate times I had and the lost times I had I’ve been very powered by wanting to help people who are in that situation. I think there are a lot of people who are sitting home going, help. Where do I start? What on earth can I do? And that’s why I wrote the book. I really, really want people to not have to go through those times I did and better share those secrets and that’s where I am today. Today I’ve written that book. I’m writing another book on work experience, placements and that sort of thing, and I’m editing a whole series of books on careers, for Palgrave McMillan. Plus, I’m touring universities and, you know, putting my finger in as many pies as I can, really.

James: Excellent. And as you mentioned, you focus on career planning and helping people at their initial stage of their career is the area that we’re going to focus on today. As we talked about before, there’s a lot of people who are very uncertain now they’ve graduated from the university – about the first steps to take on their career path and how they can, how they can go forward. So, thinking about that in career planning, where do people need to start when they don’t know where to start?

Steve: (laughing) The ultimate question. The obvious answer is, it’s probably best to start on a journey from where you are and get to where you want to go. And so, start from where you are and what I mean by that is, try and figure out where you are and then think about where you want to be. So you’ve got A to B. And try to get past that feeling, God, how is it, how am I going to get there? Try to break that process up into steps and it can be as many steps as you want. So, even if you’re living on a friend’s couch and you haven’t got a clue what you want to do with your life and you want to be an astronaut, you know, why not? There are astronauts, probably hundreds of them by now. Why shouldn’t you try and be one, but you’ve got to figure out what’s the first step. Obviously you can’t pick up the phone and ring up NASA and ask for a job. You’ve got to try and take it back and figure out the first step and that can be as small as you want. So it doesn’t have to be— It could be get up off the couch and go and read about being an astronaut. Whatever it is, the first stage doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be that first little step.

James: And in terms, then, of one of the problems people I’ve spoken to face is that they feel there’s so many options out there. They’ve graduated and there’s so many things they want to do and they are not sure about how to narrow down, the options, so it’s a more tangible easier place to start. How do you recommend that they break it down so it’s not such a huge insurmountable problem?

Steve: Yeah, James, I agree. That is, I think, the biggest problem for graduates today. Well, on one hand it’s a problem having all those options. On the other hand, people will start to realize, as I have, that that is actually an opportunity and that’s just not some American speak that I’m giving you there, that’s the way it is.   In other words, if you’re Jose Mourinho and you’ve got 50 players that you desperately want to play on your team and you’ve got to only pick 11, that’s a problem, but it actually is quite a good thing comparing it to Southend United who can get two men and a boy to play in defence. So, however, that doesn’t cure the problem. The problem is that graduate recruitment has changed radically over the last 20 years, but people’s sensibilities and people’s parent’s understanding hasn’t changed at all. People still think if you do a degree in biochemistry, you become a biochemist. You do an economics degree and you become and economist. That is just not true. Seventy percent of people end up in careers not related to their degrees.

So, as you say, you have this world of opportunity. Probably almost every career there is with almost every degree you can get into and that’s like, what the hell? Where do I start? Well, where you start is two sort of faceted. One is you’ve got to figure out yourself; and on the other hand you’ve got to figure out what’s out there. And it depends on yourself where you start but in terms of figuring out what’s out there, which is probably what you’re alluding to in the question, is I think people assume they’re meant to know everything that’s out there. You know, for some reason people say, what do you want to do now that you’ve left the university? What do you want to do when you grow up? And you’re meant to know the answer. Well, we all know a teacher, a lawyer, work for the BBC, we all know these sort of main criteria, these main jobs, these obvious jobs; dentists, doctors, but very, very few graduates or students know more than 10 percent of the careers that are out there. And there are actual ways of researching that beyond your own experience. People feel they have to know what these things are just from their own experience.

So the first step, I say, is get out yourself and do some independent research, some objective research where you look and see what your options are. Before you can choose an option you need to know what your options are.

So, do you want me to go into some various ways of looking into those options?

James: Yeah, no. If there’s some practical examples you think might be useful.

Steve:   Well, one place I start is a website called prospects.ac.uk. On that website it has various information about graduate careers. I would suggest you look at that and look at any career you’ve ever thought of, even in your bit as a child, and pick that career and look at it. So let’s say as a child I wanted to be a football player, for example. So I’ll look up football player. They may not have football players. They’ll have something like sportsman or something, and look that up and then there’s a great button on their website that says, related jobs. So I would lookup sportsman and then see that actually I’m a bit fat and old to do that, so maybe I need to do something else and I look up related jobs and it will come up with a list of jobs that are related. So there might be sports coach. There might be administrator for a sports organization. It might have a PE teacher. It might have hundreds of things. I don’t know what it’s got. But then look at any of those that are interesting and then click the related jobs button, et cetera, et cetera. And I find that a great way to go around the list, the list of a thousand jobs in a way that is intuitive to what you enjoy and then I would just write down any that come to mind. That’s probably a place I’d start. I think that’s as good a place as any but what I would do is I would say, right, I’ve got till the end of this week, I’ve got to the end of this month, whatever date you   put. I would not go to the next stage. I wouldn’t start thinking, well, how do I get into that? What do I do when can I get into that? No. This stage is just to see what’s out there. Come up  with a list of 30 odd jobs that look interesting. That’s all I’m doing because if you break the process up, it’s like breaking a project up for a university. The projects you get towards the end of university are too complicated to do in one go.   So what you intuitively do is break them up and that’s the key to taking control of your career; break it up. So the first stage, see what’s  out there. Come up with 30 ideas, full stop, and then move on to the next step. And that’s one way of navigating the prospect website. I know I sound like a salesmen but, you know, this is only a half an hour podcast. I could go on for two hours about the ways you can look for roles but luckily I’ve written them all down in my book.

James:  And in the Show Notes there will be links to the prospects website and the links that Steve just mentioned.

So you talk there about finding what’s out there. How then can people think about themselves and what their particular skills are and what they’ll be good at?

Steve: Well, you’re right and thanks for picking up on that other side of it because it’s absolutely crucial that you own this process and you realize that this isn’t an academic theoretical process to look at jobs, and jobs are boring and just look at careers, and careers has so many horrible connotations. This is about excitement. I know career advisors have got this bad sort of reputation for telling you, oh, you should have been this or you can be this, or you’ll never be that. For me, I’ve never said that to anyone. It’s always about dream. You know, this is your life. You get one opportunity. You’ve probably got 80 odd years left in your life. Why not find something that you really enjoy?

So the way I break it up is one, your skills; what you can do. Two, what you enjoy doing. And three, what you want from life. And I would come up with a list of 10 things for each of those headings. Obviously when you’re just in the university or coming out of the university you don’t know these things real deeply. But, this is a really valuable experience to force yourself to say what the answers to those things are. And again, don’t link them to careers; don’t link them to the 30 occupations that you’ve figured out; don’t link them to anything at all. Just, by the end of  this week I will have 10 skills that I’m really good at, 10 things I enjoy and 10 things I want from life. And it’s key you get things from every area. For example, if I go back to my example of being a pro football player, if I had listed my 10 skills, 10 interests and 10 motivations. Well, what did I say 10 skills, 10 things I enjoy and 10 motivations—motivations being what I want from life? I would have 10 of my motivations ticked by being a professional football player. I would   have 10 of the things I enjoy being a professional football player. So I would have 20 out of 30. This is going pretty good but when I got down to skills, it all goes very quiet because I’d get none. I haven’t got any of the skills to play professional football. So I would get 20 out of 30 and have not one of the skills. Therefore, it’s not even worth thinking about that career. I need to find things that fit all three categories. So, for example, once I worked in a petrol station on the weekends.   I had all the skills to do that job but within a few weeks I’d learned it by the back of  my hand; fine. I actually reasonably enjoyed it. It’s the middle of the night. No one ever came in. I could relax. I’d probably get 5 out of 10. But motivations, what I want from life, did it give me anything I wanted from life; nothing at all. So I couldn’t really see that as a career because I only got 15 out of 30, and I didn’t get any of the things I want from life.

So, what I would suggest is I would list those skills, interests and motivations for a week. For another week I’d see what’s out there and for the next week I would put each of those two things together. I would match the 30 ideas with the 30 things I defined about myself.   You don’t have to do it so formally like I’m suggesting. But, you know, I think that when you’re lost and you’re struggling, it’s good to have that structure to sort of engage you and believe me, when you start doing something about this fear, these big fears we have like when I was teaching little kids they’d have maths block. They’d get so scared about it they couldn’t break into it. And I had people like that with careers. It’s like the world is falling on their shoulders.

So, do something about it and when you start, ah, actually you get really engaged because I’m actually getting there. So, I would do it structurally and I would come up with my 30 ideas of jobs and my 30 criteria about myself; marry the two together to come up with a short list of, say, six positions that match pretty much who I am.

James: Excellent. And you mentioned that in the early chapters of the book. What I really liked about it is you do highlight the fact that its, to do that it just takes effort and it’s not an easy process but you need to put the effort in and take your time to be able to realize what is it you want to do.

Steve: Yeah. I don’t, I’ve never, I’ve very rarely noticed a lack of effort come from students and graduates in terms of their careers. What I’ve noticed overwhelmingly is — well, I’m using that word   ‘overwhelmingly’ — is being overwhelmed and it’s almost all students and graduates who I talk to who are struggling, it’s because it’s too much and it’s too much in their terms because they don’t know what to— They’re ready to do work, they’re ready to put in the hours but they don’t  know where to put them in, what to do. And I think that’s what’s really frustrating. When you’re there you want to do it but you don’t know where to start. You don’t know what to do.

So, again, I find that if you do get the structure, there is no real effort, no problem putting the effort in because once you start actually forcing yourself to write jobs you like the look of, 90 percent of them will be stupid jobs that when you research them using all the tools I list in my book, 90 percent of the jobs you look at will be no way near you. For example, there’s a computer program on prospects I really recommend called Prospects Planner. Ninety-five percent, if not 98 percent of the jobs that come up with will be ridiculous for you and people look at it, they bring the report and see a career advisor, they look at it and think what a waste of time. It’s not a waste of time because there will be three or four ideas on that list that are brilliant for you. So, it’s putting the work in and being prepared to engage with it and say, right, I’ve got this long list of jobs but they’re all crap. Ah! There’s one that might be interesting. I’m trying to really say, well, I’m going to get 30 jobs. Whatever it takes, I’m going to use all these source of information, I’m going to get 30. And when you put that effort in, you get a lot more back. So it really does engage you, keep you going in the journey.

James: I liked your idea of making sure that that initial search activity is time boxed. I know that you mentioned dissertations earlier. When I was doing my dissertation I almost had a paralysis by analysis of, just it was easier for me to keep on researching, researching, researching,  researching than actually stopping and doing the work and writing it which was the difficult thing I kept on putting off. So I just kept on researching, and do more researching and research.

Steve: You can drift can’t you with careers. People just drift through year and year and they say, oh, look, I thought about this and I thought about that, or I applied for that, applied for that. But what they’re saying is they’re not taking control. They’re not; to use your word, time boxing it. They’re not saying I’m going to strategically take control of this. And one reason is, is the fear of rejection; the fear of actually crossing job off because that means you’re even lessening your options; the fear of facing up to the fact that it’s your life and to get what you want you need to really go for it. In many ways it becomes so daunting that it’s easier to just not face up to those because you keep your options open but actually, you’re not keeping your options open. You’re just drifting.

James: So, if people follow your advice and they narrow it down then to some of the particular roles  they’re interested in, what is the next step then? Now you’ve got the role. How do you then start planning and thinking how you’re going to get that role?

Steve: Well, let’s say I’ve got six jobs on my shortlist that I had 30 and I end up narrowing them down using my assessment criteria of who I am and I’ve got about six jobs, six occupations on my list that look reasonably pretty interesting. I think you’ve got to, first of all, do a bit of book research or internet research and figure out more about each of these things. And probably out of that six, four of them will stay strong and one or two you’ll suddenly realize actually that’s not what I thought that job was. You know, maybe that isn’t for me. So, there you narrow it down. You get two off your list.   You’ve got four. Then, really again book research, figure out the route into it. So, if you wanted to be a solicitor, for example and you’ve got a history degree, you’d probably have to do two years of extra post graduate study and then get a training contract to be a solicitor.

So, the first step then is that first year of post graduate training and what I would do then is, you can read every book in the world about being a lawyer but you don’t know until you get in the shoes. So I would think who do I know either on my social networks or in my real networks who knows someone, who knows someone in that profession?

So my dad had a car accident a few years ago and was working with a solicitor. They got along pretty well. Why don’t I ask my dad to get in touch with John Humphreys at that firm and say, can I come and have a five minute chat about being a criminal solicitor. And then, go in and have a five minute chat with him. And people generally say yes — it’s amazing — if you target them in such a way. If you just go from out of the blue, they’re not; but if your dad knows them or if your mom’s sister’s pool attendant knows them whomever. Remember, we all know people who know people, who know people. In fact, it’s been proven that if you take that six degrees, the six degrees of separation, we all know everybody in the whole world. So you can’t say I don’t know anyone. You do. If you know one person, they know someone who knows someone. So I would get out there and try to meet people who know about each of these four things. It may not be so easy with something like management consultancy or whatever, but it’s easier than you think. Career advisors at universities will know people who know people.   Student societies at your university will know people who know people. You’re on my network. People come and visit universities. All sorts of people know people. So just reach out and say, do you know anyone that would—- John, do you know anyone that could help me? And I would try and get out there and chat to people and get further ideas of these careers, sit down for five minute chat with people and then like the law one I would say, right, thanks for the chat. Can I come and shadow you next week for a day or two just to see what it’s like? And what you’re doing there is you’re networking but you’re also getting your foot in the door. Then I would say I’ve got summer off. Can I come and help out just for a few days a week, just on a voluntary basis? And then in your next year at uni maybe you can get a placement over that summer. Either way there’s loads of ways; joining a society at the university; joining local societies; getting involved with jobs in that section; volunteering in legal sort of areas. There are loads of ways of getting your foot in the door and then trying to get some work experience and then building up your experience so that when you apply for that post graduate training contract, you’ve got, already got things on your CV.

James: The issue of experience is a classic catch-22 that students face, is that they apply for jobs for which they need experience but they don’t have the experience. How do you get the experience? As you mentioned, networking so you can get that internship so you can get that job shadowing or, is there another way to do it?

Steve:   Yeah. I think we all have experience, James. What I’ve realized in latter life is that that’s nonsense, that catch-22 because we all have experience. We were all born. We all grew up.    We all have just— I’m unfortunately got 48 years of experience. We’re all full of it. So saying you don’t have experience is nonsense. We all have experience. The point is, is that people think that they can jump from there, where they are and an internship. An internship is like six levels  down the internship, down the experience route. So you know, you’re not just going to go from having no work experience to get an internship. You know, you need to join societies, join clubs; meet people and talk to them like I’ve discussed; try to get your foot in the door with a voluntary organization; try and join things at the university. There’s all sorts of things you can do and they’re just everywhere, where you can get out there and help people in some sort of legal sort of context. Join the Citizen’s Advisory Bureau to help people. There’s loads of ways to get your foot in the door which will turn into a bit more experience which will turn into a bit more which will eventually turn into an internship. So what the struggle is, is not getting experience, it’s thinking you can jump up that ladder, up six rungs of ladder at once. You’ve got to take it easy and do it one thing at a time.

James:  I love the comment in your book about you need to leave the house and get busy.

Steve: It’s a bit cruel; isn’t it? It’s just that no one is going to come and knock on your door and say, I’ve got this great job for you. So you need to take control and if, if you’re busy 20 hours a day  doing all sorts of different things, one of those things will lead to something. It could be that you’re working in a supermarket and you’re checking out the biscuits for some guy in a posh suit and you say, what do you do? And he says, I’m a solicitor and you say, well, can I come in and have a chat with you? You never know when the breaks are there. So you need to get out there and put yourself out there and keep an eye out for opportunities.

James:  Definitely. You talk in the book about going on to study, post graduate study. What are the correct motivations for wanting to do this as opposed to just, I can’t get a job so I’ll do something.

Steve:   Well, yeah. It’s great you talk about the correct motivations. I think most people put the cart before the horse with this. Like you say, they think, they just assume doing post graduate study will get them a better career and so they go into it. And what you’ll find is that post graduate study can indeed enhance your career but only if it’s appropriate to that career.   So, if I take you back to the question, well, what are the correct sorts of ways? The first one is clearly, I enjoy the subject. I think that’s the most wonderful reason to do post graduate study.  Forgetting your career, I just love telecommunications. I’m going to do a Masters in it. I just love it. What a great sentiment. I mean if you’ve got that sort of money because they’re expensive but, you know, what a great motivation.

Another great motivation is that you have worked out that you want to be a telecommunications engineer and you’ve spoken to people and you’ve done your research and worked out the absolutely crucial in that route to becoming a telecommunications engineer is a Master’s. And the Masters at Birmingham University, for example, is the one to take. Then that’s a great motivation to do that Masters because you know from day one where you’re going with that Masters and probably half of what you gain by doing a Masters is the contacts you make. So from day one you can meet the right people and get involved. And rather than just pick a Masters out of the hat, think that will lead me on, so you’re doing it assuming it will help you. For example, in publishing you might think that you do a Masters in creative writing which will get you into a job in a publishers; but it might do but the chance aren’t it wont. So you’ll get to the end, you’ll have spent all that money and realize, damn, it didn’t help me anyway. I could have— There’s many other things I could have done that would have been more effective. Or there was some other course I could have done that would have been even more effective.

So, yeah, put the horse before the cart. In other words, figure out your route. Figure out where the ideas where you want to go into a career and then figure out you route and if post graduate study fits into that route, all well and good. But don’t do it thinking about post graduate study and where that goes because that’s often a bit of a cul-de-sac.

James:  No, I agree and as we talked about at the beginning of the episode with planning out what your path is and what steps you need to go along. If you can think about that by doing post graduate study it’s going to take off the need for X, Y, Z whether it’s experience or contacts or that higher degree of knowledge that you need to get the job of your choice, then it’s a great way to do it. But in my experience having interviewed people and seeing two candidates, one whose maybe got years of work experience that’s relevant and one person whose got a year of postgraduate study, most of the time I tend to go towards the experience and the practical skills, whether it’s at home or travelling abroad.

Steve:   I think it’s a very easy road to fall down because academics in universities tend to have an erroneous view of how important academia is, because they’re in it. And you can get this feeling   having gone out from university, straight from nursery all the way through, that more and more education is inevitably better. Well, it may be but it isn’t. At some point an employer wants you to be able to do the job; it’s not necessarily know what the latest theory is to do with whatever.

James: Of course.

Steve, I could talk for hours about your work. Unfortunately we are drawing to the end of the   half hour. So, let’s move now to the quick fire question round.

Steve: All right.

James: Which book – it could be on any topic – would you recommend that students or graduates must read?

Steve:   I’m sorry, James, but I can’t look pass my book. It’s an impossible professional answer.   I’m on the whole quite a negative person about my skills and my achievements. But in this regard I think this book is amazing. It’s amazing because I did achieve what I wanted. It does give succour and it does support and it does provide a manual for people for people who are lost and looking to try and figure out where they’re going in their lives and their careers. And I’m so passionate about it that if one person as a result of this Podcast picks this book up and has a bit of a eureka moment, then that really, just really sends me into a spin. It really makes my day. So I’ve got to recommend my book. People can look at it in many different ways. They can approach it whether they’ve got a job, whether they know what they want to do or whether they’re completely lost. I think it will really help anyone that’s listening to this Podcast and why I have agreed to do it with you.

James: The links to the book will be in the show notes and check it out at Amazon. The number of five star reviews is testament to the fact that people are finding if useful.

Steve:   Well, I hope so.

James:  You talked about using prospects and the prospect site. What “must-have” internet resource   would you recommend to help people with their job search?

Steve:   I think the, the all modern technologies have a tendency to think they can usurp older technologies. When color TV came out, it probably did kill black and white TV but TV itself didn’t kill radio; did it? We still listen to radio. I’ve got a fountain pen here I use. You know, even though biros were invented I still prefer it.   I think there is a place for all technologies and I love the internet for giving information and advice on any number of career topics but what they lack is guidance. What they lack is that avuncular uncle putting his arm around you and trying to take you through the process and I think people who just think, I’ve got to look at a CV I’ll just look at a website, are missing the point. They need a much richer, deeper experience which a book can give. However, I was thinking about this, I lent heavily in my book on the University of Kent’s careers service website. I would recommend that.

James:  Excellent. And finally, what one tip would you give people that they should start following today to improve their job hunting skills?

Steve:   Take control.

James:  Excellent.

Steve, it’s been a pleasure to have you on the podcast but before we finish, what’s the best way for people to get in touch with you and to find out more about what you do?

Steve:   Good question. One of these days I’ll develop a website and sell my book on the website but at the moment I haven’t; so probably either my LinkedIn profile or my email address. My LinkedIn profile, you’ll just have to look up Steve Rook on LinkedIn and join me and my thousands of fellow members. And my email address is my name which is Steven Thomas Rook which is Steven with a “v”. Steven Thomas Rook. Steventhomasrook@yahoo.co.uk.

James: Thank you and as I said both of those will be linked to in the Show Notes.

Steve:   All right. It’s cool.

James:  Steve, thank you very much for your time. It’s much appreciated.

Steve:   Okay, James.

James:  Thanks again to Steve Rook for sharing his excellent advice on career planning.

In terms of my personal top 3 points to takeaway from this episode, first is a message of positivity. As Steve says it’s a world of opportunity, and having so many different options might be daunting initially, but ultimately it is a good problem to have. As he says, if you want to be an astronaut, why not? This is your life and you get one opportunity to live it.

The second key point for me is having set your dream is then break down the steps to getting there. You need to put actionable steps in place to get you where you want to go. Steve talked about thinking about the 10 skills, 10 interests, and 10 motivations and using that as a basis for planning your career. Put the effort in, do the research and use tools such as the prospect planner, and also plotr which is one which we didn’t talk about in the show but is a really useful one which I will link to in the show notes.

Finally for me I loved his point about experience and the fact that we all have experience. It’s just a question of looking at yourself and examining which experiences you have that you can talk about and build on. As he said, don’t try and jump 6 levels at once whether you are working towards a job or an internship, look at the intermediate steps and how you can build from where you are to where you want to go.

The full transcript of today’s episode can be found on the website at graduatejobpodcast.com/careerplanning. Please do get in touch via twitter as well @gradjobpodcast. Finally please leave a review on Itunes, I read everyone and it’s great to hear your feedback.

Do join us next week when we have author Mildred Talabi sharing her tips for how to use social media effectively in your job search. I hope you enjoyed the episode today, but more importantly I hope you use it and apply it. See you next week.

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