We’ve got the latest in the My First Steps series, in which Marketing Assistant Seyran Khalili interviews various professionals about their first steps after graduating, and their advice for currrent students and recent graduates. Up this week, it’s Kate Woods who works as a Careers Consultant here at Careers & Employability….
Kate Woods is one of our Careers Consultants, working mainly with students in the King’s Business School. As one of my first interviews, I had the pleasure of speaking to her about her recommendations for students’ first steps after graduation.
During my interview with her, not only did I receive lots of advice and a friendly talk – I also got to get to know a little bit more about her career path. Kate shared with me that she had studied Economics and Accountancy because she thought she wanted to be an accountant, whereas she was actually more interested in Business Management. While she was doing her degree, she became interested in student radio and television, and at the end of her degree applied on a whim to a six-month placement in radio, and had to choose between a six-month temporary contract in radio, doing a road safety campaign, or a management training programme.
She chose the six-month placement in radio because she thought the opportunity would never come back, explaining “I felt a bit mad, but I went on to get a degree and have a career as a documentary filmmaker for a while, and now I’m a careers consultant. So I’m still telling stories, just other peoples’ ones – you just never know where your career is going to take you!”
Advice to students about what they should do as their first steps
“In the UK job market, most employers appreciate that you have a good degree from a good university. If you are a graduate (or soon to be one) of King’s, you’ve come to a great university! So don’t feel pigeonholed by your degree.
If you’ve graduated and you haven’t got anything lined up, the first thing to do is to not panic. Don’t Panic! Lots of people are in that situation, it will work out. But you’ve got to be active. There are practical things you can do; like making sure your LinkedIn profile is there. Do you even have one? If not, get one! Lots and lots of jobs appear on LinkedIn.”
The second thing is to get in touch with the careers service and book an appointment. Now I would say that wouldn’t I, because I’m a careers consultant! But honestly you can come to us with no idea of what to do, and we will help you and support you to start thinking about how to solve this problem. It’s just a problem that needs solving, and it’s so much easier to do if you do it with a bit of support. Often a series of short appointments with identified goals are much better than one long one. So don’t feel alone, get some support because it’s out there.”
The third thing to do is spend some time reflecting on the different skills you’ve acquired. All degrees will have what we call transferrable skills, so we’ve got lots of resources online where you can do a skills awareness audit, giving you the chance to think and reflect about what you’ve learned in your degree and how you can identify the skills that all employers want.”
Advice for students searching for graduate opportunities
“Consider the theory of ‘Locus of Control.’ It’s about remaining in control, and rather than thinking “Oh, somebody out there will give me a job,” taking control of the situation of yourself and taking actions yourself.
It can also be as useful to know what you don’t want to do, as what you do want to do. So if there’s any opportunities for work shadowing or work experience that come up, even for a day it can tell you a lot. Think about what you wouldn’t enjoy about working in that area, and it will help you to identify what your priorities are and find areas that fit in with that.
Spend a little bit of time thinking about the difference between the type of job you want: the role you want, the sector you want, and the type of company you want. An example I always trot out, of a recent graduate who was doing something with accountancy in a big bank in Canary Wharf, and he didn’t like his life. He thought “I’m going to throw it all up”. But on reflection, he ended up moving to become an accountant in the business function of Warner Brothers Films. So it wasn’t the job characteristics, but the job sector and type of company that made the difference. Is a start-up something for you or would you like to work in a tall glass building? Or would you want to work in a family business? Understanding the difference between work in those environments is very helpful. Getting work experience in any of those is beneficial.
There are plusses and minuses in each of these, and they will suit different people. Often people think I’ll just go work for a random company, but hang on there are loads of different roles in that company. What are these roles you are interested in?”
Strategies graduates could use to get to where they want to be
“Break your job search down into manageable chunks, have a little bit of a plan – don’t just take a scattergun approach. Use your networks, and join the King’s Connect Mentoring Programme if you haven’t already.
There is never one answer that fits everybody. It’s always a combination of your own self-awareness; skills you’ve developed, your own network, your own activity and a stroke of luck. Try and do a little bit of something around your job search each day. And also, don’t wait for jobs to be advertised. You need to reach out and keep yourself in the right area for the job.
You just never know where ideas or leads are going to come from. There is a theory called ‘Planned-Happenstance’ which sort of translates as ‘make your own luck’ which is keeping your eyes and ideas open, in the online space and in real life as to what might be out there.”
“I worked with a student who wanted to get into a specialised area, she had a very particular skill set and was determined to get into this job market. She had no contact and didn’t know what to do. Resourcefully, she went on to Eventbrite and she found that a conference was taking place in London. She signed up as a student member, she went along and didn’t know a soul. She got talking to somebody in the coffee queue, and this person said you must meet my boss, one thing led to another, and suddenly she was working in her dream job. And that’s ‘Planned-Happenstance’ because she was active, she was open, she was happy to talk to someone in a coffee queue. She was happy to go along to meet them. It’s all little bit of chance”