Get careers help during National Careers Week 2023

National Careers Week runs from Monday 6 March to Saturday 11 March. It aims to help you to become more aware of your career and make you excited about your future.

We can help you make career decisions throughout your life. From deciding your education route, planning a career change or getting the job that is right for you.

Wherever you're at in your journey, we can help you to:

• identify your skills, interests and career goals
• explore and compare different options for your career
• work out the best career option for you
• plan your next step and take action

How we can help you with your career choices 

Watch some of our career advisers talk about what they do and how we can help support you to:

• assess where you are now
  
• decide what careers suit you
  
• plan your next steps and be open to options

4 minute 40 second watch

View transcript

Hi, my name’s Clare. I’m a careers adviser.

Hello, my name’s Julie Taylor. I’m a National Careers Service adviser.

Hello everyone. My name is Monique Smith and I am an area manager working on the National Careers Service.

Hi, my name’s Tyler. I’m a careers adviser for the National Careers Service in London.

Hi, my name’s Lis. I’m a careers adviser. I work for the National Careers Service.

So what I would do in a session, I would talk to the person, see where they’re at. And then they might have specific needs and then I would try and coach them through those. So some specific activities that I would do is mock interviews, giving people pointers on how to come across really well in an interview. I would also help people to um create a CV. Also guide people looking at their skills and what skills they can use in other roles. Because they might want a career change and they might be you know concerned or confused at what they can do. They might think 'oh actually I can’t do anything else' but that’s never the case.

So in those one to one sessions, we may go through ur some general careers advice. I mean where we look at the National Careers Service website. So looking at maybe the Skills Health Check or the job profiles. Or we might look at helping to find a course. Or a common one is usually how to write a CV and a cover letter as well. We may make some referrals for job roles and employers so that the customer can leave with something and be contacted in the near future.

I’d say for anyone to see a careers adviser. Literally, if you’re looking to either move into a new career, if you’re looking to start to get into work, if you’re looking to upskill and progress within the role that you have now or potentially you know just enrol on a course and potentially use your transferable skills. I would say careers advice would be helpful for almost everyone.

One of the things I get asked a lot though as a careers adviser is 'I don’t really know what I want to do. How can I find that out? How can I find the perfect job for me?' What I always say to them is that if you don’t understand yourself and you don’t know what you enjoy and you don’t know what your skills are, then you won’t be able to make good choices in terms of jobs and careers.

So, my advice to anyone who’s got that question would be start by taking an audit of your skills. Get to know yourself. There are lots of ways that you can do that. Some people do formal careers or personality matching tests, for example like the Skills Health Check on our website. But there are also lots more. We have lots of articles and resources on our website to help people explore their skills.

And then once you know what your skills are, what your interests are, it will start suggesting some job roles that you can look into. We’ve then got all the resources on our website such as job profiles on the explore careers section. So, you can then check that out, have a look and see, do you need to do anymore training? Is there a particular skill that you would like to develop?

The advice that I always give people, that I always give my customers is, at any stage in your working life, you should be open to options. So don’t necessarily have that fixed mindset that 'I need to do this, I need to do that.' But be open. So, if you’re offered some training, if you’re offered some increased responsibility, if you’re offered a slightly different opportunity or you see something that you think looks interesting, just go for it. You know, always do it because you never know where that’s going to take you.

We work everywhere. You find us in libraries, information centres, colleges, job centres. Wherever there’s a need basically. So, if you ring the 0800 100 900 number, then you’ll get through to the call centre. They’ll work out where it’s best for you to see a careers adviser. So it might be me or it might be one of my other colleagues who are all really well trained as careers advisers.

Wherever you are in your career journey, National Careers Service can support you to help you to think about what careers suits you. Maybe help you with your interview skills, getting your CV brushed up. All of these things we can help.

If in doubt just give the National Careers Service a call.

So, you can contact us through ringing the 0800 100 900 number, or there’s our webchat service. Or even if you just want to have a browse on our website, there’s loads of stuff on there, it’s really good content on that website.

Assess where you are now

When thinking about career goals, it can be useful to start by assessing where you are now. Think about what skills you have now, what you're good at and what you're interested in.

If you're not sure, you might want to take an assessment to discover your skills.

This assessment takes 5 to 10 minutes and will suggest some careers that you might enjoy. Look at the careers and think about:

• the types of careers that have been suggested for you
• which careers you like and why
• which careers do not interest you and why

Decide what careers would suit you

Once you have an idea of your skills and interests, you might want to decide what careers would suit you.

You might know which sector you want to work in, but are not sure of the different careers you could do in that sector. Use the job categories to see all the different careers you could do. 

For each career, you can find out:

• how to get into it and if you need any qualifications
• what skills you'll use in the job
• what day to day tasks you'll do
• what career progression there is

This might help you to create a list of careers that interest you.

Plan your next steps

Once you have an idea of what careers interest you, you can create a plan. To plan your next steps, you can read online careers advice or speak to a free careers adviser.

Online careers advice articles

You can start thinking about your next steps by reading some online careers advice. 

We have different information and advice for making career choices, getting a job or progressing your career.

Speak to a careers adviser

You can also speak to a careers adviser for free. They can help create a plan that works for you. For example, they might help you to:

• think about what options you have
• research into training, study or volunteering opportunities
• set short, medium and long term goals to help you move toward your career goal
• plan a job search

You can speak to our careers advisers in person, online or over the phone.

Support if you have a disability

If you have a disability or special educational needs, you can get:

• education advice if you are leaving school or have recently left
• job support to find and stay in work

Find a course

The next step in your career might involve training. 

You can search for online and classroom courses near you to help you get a job or develop your skills.