Anastasia de Waal - The Job-Ready Guide: How to Set Yourself Up for Career Success

Anastasia de Waal is Director of the Family & Education Unit and Deputy Director of the think tank Civitas. She is also a qualified primary school teacher and founder of I Can Be, which takes disadvantaged primary school children to visit professionals in their workplaces. A regular contributor to the media, she is Chair of national family support charity Family Lives and Visiting Scholar at Cambridge Universitys Centre for Family Research.

Are you a university or college student or are you a recent graduate? Whichever stage youre at in your studies, and whether youre pretty clear about your next move or youre feeling completely at sea career-wise, The Job - Ready Guide is here to help you navigate what you need to think about and what you need to do, to prepare yourself for the start of your working life.

I have literally no idea what job I want to do.

Can I get a job without having any work experience in the relevant industry?

Are you just supposed to pick up brochures at careers fairs?

Do I need to include my GCSE results on my CV?

What do I do if I dont know the answer to something during a job interview?

How do I know roughly what my starting salary should be?

What if I dont understand what Ive been asked to do on my first day?

In todays highly competitive and increasingly complex job market, bolstering your employability as far as possible from building up skills and experience, to understanding your target industry and cultivating professionalism is more important than ever.

Over the course of the following chapters well develop and hone your career plan, working out where and what youre aiming for, and equipping you with the tools to get there. This book is angled primarily at those leaving university or college with a degree, but much of it can be readily applied to anyone embarking on their career.

Setting you up for career success is about preparing you both for the here and now whatever stage of career planning youre currently at and for your more long-term professional future. In other words, its about building up your CV and your skills so that you can successfully apply and prepare for your first job after university or college, as well as working on the attributes you need to develop a strong record and reputation once you get into the workplace.

Its worth emphasizing from the start that career planning doesnt mean identifying and settling down into one type of job, or even industry, for the rest of your working life. Careers today are much more flexible, and the jobs that make up a successful career will often be very varied. Getting job-ready is about launching a professional life in which youre able to foster and seize opportunities, and continually progress whatever form that progression may take.

Making the move from education to work can be daunting, and many soon-to-be employees say they feel underprepared for it. Significantly, many of your future bosses concur. Employers across industries, and line managers across levels of seniority, repeatedly complain about the same weaknesses in the candidates and new employees they see. As one employer puts it: New entrants to the job market are more educated than ever a brilliant thing but many of them are also less prepared for the demands of getting into and succeeding in working life.

One of the main aims of writing this book was to contribute to correcting that disconnect between what employers want and what the workforce of the future has to offer by highlighting common pitfalls and how to avoid them. Furthermore, my aim was to find out how you can equip yourself with the skills, experience and behaviours that are sought after by employers to help you become a sought-after candidate. Key to this endeavour was to identify those in-between aspects and soft skills; the often unspoken but crucial contributors to success in the workplace, or as one recent graduate put it, The things that employers expect, but no one tells you about.

As a researcher by trade, I therefore set out to identify and pull together what employers want you to know about preparing for, getting into and excelling in the workplace. As well as gathering the views of those running organizations and those in charge of hiring on what theyre looking for, I sought out warts and all advice from different levels of professionals, across a spread of sectors. From recent graduates to senior executives, professionals with diverse backgrounds have revealed the strategies and tips they found helpful in establishing their careers, as well as what they wish theyd known or done differently. Students on the cusp of entering the workforce have also shared their experiences and what theyve learnt so far. All quotes in the book have been anonymized, specifically to ensure the frankest feedback and most candid advice.

Every suggested step in The Job - Ready Guide is simple and wholly achievable: none of the advice is rocket science in fact its mostly common sense and all of it is straightforwardly applicable. The topics well look at will take you from the very beginnings of thinking about the industries you might be interested in, while youre still studying, to weighing up your options a year into your first job. In The Job - Ready Guide well work through:

Setting yourself up for success:

• what you can do during your studies to build up a strong CV.

• what to investigate to identify the career options most suited to you.

• how to plan, set up and get the most out of work experience placements.

• how to weigh up the value of doing further study in order to achieve your career goals.

Developing job-ready skills:

• the central characteristics of strong leadership and good teamwork in the workplace and how to develop the requisite skills.

• the key communication skills you need in the workplace and how to hone them for optimal effect.

• what problem-solving skills in the workplace entail, why employers want them and how to put them into practice.

• how to build a good understanding of your target industry and how to keep abreast of it as you progress in your career.

Looking for a job:

• how to organize yourself, and your background research, in order to optimize your job hunt.

• the attitude and habits to foster to be an effective professional.

• how to use social media to maximize your strength as a candidate.

• how to use networking to build up your exposure to job opportunities.

• building up your money management skills and getting your finances in order.

Applying for a job:

• how to put together a strong and well-presented CV.

• what makes for powerful covering letters and how to complete application forms effectively.

• how to prepare for and perform as well as possible in job interviews.

• what to expect at assessment centre days, how to prepare for them and how to do your best in tasks.

• how to plan, prepare and deliver strong presentations.

• how to decide whether to accept a job offer, and how and when to try to negotiate a better deal.

Starting a job:

• what to think about and what to prepare to get off to a great start in a new job.