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During your life you will make lots of key decisions. Some of the most important will relate to your career. The average person will potentially spend between a third and a half of their waking hours in work over the course of their lives.

Having a job is essential to give us the income stream we all need. But jobs, or rather vocations, have the potential to be so much more. Jobs can be rewarding, helpful, inspiring. Choosing a career can have a great impact on your life. We here at Callywith want to support you to make ‘rational informed career decisions’.

The world is changing, new technologies, a changing climate, and new ways of thinking about how the world of business and jobs work are creating new career areas. Emerging technologies could become major sources of employment in the future.

For a long time, the concept of a ‘job for life’ was the norm. This is no longer the case. A person leaving education now could have ‘12 or more careers’.

Those jobs may be in one occupational sector, such as construction, engineering, creative and digital or health and social care but it is increasingly likely that people will move between sectors during their working lives. This makes it increasingly important that you develop TRANSFERABLE SKILLS such as: listening, communication, team-working, meeting deadlines, analysis, and organisation. It is important you consider ‘WHAT SKILLS ARE EMPLOYERS LOOKING FOR?’ and develop these through your courses, part-time jobs, volunteering activities, sports, other leisure activities and travelling.

Although labour market trends have become more difficult to predict, taking labour market information into account when making career decisions, is more important than ever. The two links below provide information on Cornwall and UK trends:
CORNWALL LMI SECTOR GUIDES
LMI FOR ALL

Careers and LMI is often available on large employers, such as the NHS:
JOBS IN THE NHS

Finding a job roles of interest is often challenging. The PROSPECTS website is a very helpful resource and includes information on:
24 different JOB SECTORS
​Hundreds of detailed JOB PROFILES

Other websites that have helpful information on different job roles:
NATIONAL CAREERS SERVICE
HOW TO BECOME
ICOULD
SPEAKERS FOR SCHOOLS

During your time at Callywith, we will work hard to support you to identify and apply for your post-18 career pathway. Two key options you should research and consider are:

Going onto higher education.
Attaining an apprenticeship.

There are over 150 universities in the UK and many further education colleges and other educational institutions also offer degree courses. There are over 50,000 different courses that you can choose from. The majority are for three years but there are a wide range of four-year sandwich courses that include a year placement in a business or organisation in the UK or abroad. There are several useful websites that you can use to find out more about higher education opportunities:

Quite often students have identified a subject they would like to study at undergraduate level but are not sure what they can do with that degree. Prospects has a very helpful ‘WHAT CAN I DO WITH MY DEGREE’ section, where you can enter any subject of interest to you. This has links to related job roles.

UCAS is a national admissions service for students, universities and colleges. It contains a course search tool and helpful information for young people thinking of applying for an undergraduate course and their parents/carers.

The COMPLETE UNIVERSITY GUIDE is a very helpful website that can be used for COURSE SEARCHES and to view the UNIVERSITY COURSE RANKINGS for that course. The GUARDIAN UNIVERSITY LEAGUE TABLES is a second website that can be used to identify the ranking of universities for a particular subject. This uses eight criteria to rank university courses, including ‘Career after 15 months’ (the % of graduates that are in employment of completing a masters course or PHD), student feedback and student/staff ratios.

The RUSSELL GROUP is an association of 24 leading research-intensive universities in the UK.

There are a number of guides on how to write a PERSONAL STATEMENT, including one produced by UCAS.

Apprenticeships have been around for a very long time, they have experienced major changes and developments in recent years. The Government introduced an ‘Apprenticeship Levy’ in 2017. The levy is “paid by large employers with a pay bill of over £3 million (they pay 0.5% of their total annual pay bill).” The levy can only be spent on providing apprenticeship training in their organisation.

Apprenticeship opportunities have developed to be relevant to many different sectors. In fact, it is possible to complete an apprenticeship for all jobs, except to become a doctor, dentist, pharmacist or vet. Currently there are 739 apprenticeship standards for different job roles in the UK.

Apprenticeships have been traditionally offered at Level 2, but in recent years many more are available at higher level (4 and 5) and degree level (6 and 7). The UCAS website has information on the wide range of degree apprenticeships being offered by businesses and organisations in the UK.

The government produce two apprenticeship websites:

A NATIONAL VACANCY LIST of higher and degree apprenticeships. This is updated in October and January and contains hundreds of higher and degree apprenticeship opportunities; some are in Cornwall and Devon.

FIND AN APPRENTICESHIP - can be used to both search for local apprenticeships but also a particular type of apprenticeship across the country.

Cornwall Council produce a very easy to use ‘CORNWALL OPPORTUNITIES’ website that can be used to search for apprenticeships in Cornwall and Plymouth.

Below are links to four more helpful apprenticeship websites:
APPRENTICESHIPS – TOP TIPS AND ADVICE
INFORMATION ABOUT APPRENTICESHIPS (government site)
RATE MY APPRENTICESHIP
NOT GOING TO UNIVERSITY

There are a number of organisations that support students with special educational needs and disabilities including:
KEHELLAND TRUST COURSES
LEARNING WITH NEWQUAY ORCHARD
SUPPORTED INTERNSHIPS
Careers South West (CSW)

Thorough research into the company or organisation is key before starting an application. Employers may require you to complete an application form or to send them your CV and a cover letter.

CV WRITING GUIDE CV
CV Template
COVER LETTER WRITING GUIDE
Cover Letter Template & Example

Gap years appear to be on the increase again post the pandemic. Reasons for taking a gap year include:

There is lots of helpful information and advice online. Prospects has produced a very helpful ‘SHOULD I TAKE A GAP YEAR’ article.

There are many organisations that offer gap year experiences. Some are private businesses that charge high prices. There are also charity-based and not-for-profit organisations. Two popular work-exchange (exchange work for accommodation) websites are Workaway and Worldpackers. These and other gap year websites have reviews and articles online.

Callywith students can at any time request a meeting with one of the College’s Careers Advisers. Follow-up appointments are arranged as required. Please click here to BOOK A CAREERS APPOINTMENT.