National Careers Week is taking place from 6th – 11th March and is a one-week celebration of careers guidance and free resources in education across the UK. Their aim is to provide a focus for careers guidance activity at an important stage in the academic calendar to help support young people develop awareness and excitement about their future pathways.

This year we wanted to know what our staff wanted to be when they were older and what they are now and also what they would tell their younger self.

We heard from our Partnership and Delivery Manager, David Roe.

“When I was younger I had lots of different ideas but settled on the idea of becoming a Journalist. This is because I loved English and it seemed like Journalism would be a good way to be able to use English in my job.

Unfortunately I found out it wasn’t really for me. I’ve had lots of different jobs over the years including doing data entry, labouring, picking fruit. It wasn’t until I was doing an admin job in a day centre for people with disabilities that I found that I loved helping people and that realisation led me to the job I’m doing now with CSW as a Partnership and Delivery Manager. In this role I work with partners to ensure we are working well together and they understand what we can and can’t do and make sure that we are providing everything that we are contracted to do by our commissioners in the Local Authorities Devon and Torbay. It’s not what I thought I would be doing when I was 16 but I really enjoy it as I know we are making a difference to young people and helping them make informed decisions about their futures.

What would you tell your younger self?

“I would tell my younger self that ‘making decisions about the future may seem overwhelming but as long as you’ve made an informed decision then you will be able to look back and think, well it might not have worked out, but I made the best decision I could at the time, with the information I had.”

Here are some places you can start looking at Career Options.

These are some of the resources I’ve used with young people;

https://icould.com/buzz-quiz/ – This is short, fun quiz that tells you what jobs you might be suited to based on your answers

https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/explore-careers – Has hundreds of job profiles so you can explore a particular job, what’s involved, the salary, entry route etc. You can also look by job sector if you aren’t quite sure what job you want to do but know what area you are interested in. In the job profiles it also lists related careers which can help you think about what other jobs are out there and if there are of interest.

https://www.gov.uk/apply-apprenticeship – You can use this to search for apprenticeships within your local area. It’s good as it helps you to see what types of apprenticeships are out there, what the salary is, what’s involved etc.