From Comfort-Zone to Career-Ready
Exploring My Career-Readiness
I have always been ambitious. From a young age I wanted to be a doctor, a paediatrician. When I didn’t get the grades to do medicine I fell into Mental Health Nursing, but the course was not right for me. I ended up doing something I never wanted to do — dropping out and taking a gap year. I spent the year with very little confidence in where I would end up. Despite this, I travelled Europe, taught myself A-level Psychology and secured my place at Manchester to do a degree that I had genuine interest in.
Fast-forward to being in first year of university, my confidence in myself was slowly building, but I still had no idea what career I wanted. I didn’t have an up-to-date CV; I had never written a cover letter and was petrified of video interviews. I chose to put myself out of my comfort-zone and picked to do the Career Management Unit.
“I chose to put myself out of my comfort-zone”
I was actually quite surprised when I completed the initial confidence scale and scored quite highly with the questions. My confidence didn’t seem to falter at my prospects but rather at the simpler things like writing an effective CV and being successful in a video interview.
Writing my CV:
I found the process of completing the Career Management Unit nerve-wracking and stressful. I felt unsure of what to put, unaware of how to present myself on paper and unable to articulate my experience in terms of desired skills. For me, these tasks were mind-over-matter. I was making them bigger in my head than they really were. Once I got started and gathered everything in front of me, writing my CV and first ever cover letter were not nearly as hard as I expected. I wrote all of my experiences on my CV, then removed anything that wasn’t relevant. Starting with more than I needed allowed me to see that I have more usable experience than I give myself credit for. I have more skills that are applicable to a number of settings than I realised.
Completing the Video Interview
My video interview was incredibly anxiety-provoking. I was sweating a lot and found myself saying ‘erm’ every two seconds. Now? I understand the process, I know how I react to this situation and can calm myself in advance to avoid any nervous mistakes. I feel better prepared to do video interviews in the future and to be able to apply my experiences to questions on-the-spot.
So, What Now?
Completing the Career Management Unit has left me feeling more confident about my career prospects. I now have the tools to get any job I apply for. I still don’t know where I will end up, I’m pretty sure it’ll be something Business-y, since my skills seem best suited to that environment, but I feel confident saying that I now have the skillset to apply and interview for future graduate jobs.
