Mountain Climber Worksheet

Achieving your dream career may feel like a long way off. That’s only natural! It takes years for most people to achieve their career aspirations and rise through the ranks to success. For others, the journey may be shorter, but there will still be several steps involved along the way. Our Mountain Climber Worksheet will help you to identify what comes first, next and so on.

Start by identifying your career goal (if you can) or what you aspire to do some day. Think about the qualifications, skills and experience required and make a plan of action to gain these, breaking it down into specific actions and timescales.

How to use

Enter your Career Goal

Start by entering your career goal. This could your dream job, or your first job or apprenticeship after finishing school, college, university.

Add Entry Requirements and Essential Criteria

Make a list of the qualifications/certification, technical and transferable skills, and work experience required to achieve your goal.

If you do not know what is required, you will need to do some research which could include:

• Using our Career Guides to learn more about different industry sectors and what they involve
• Visiting websites like Prospects or the National Careers Services to find out about different job roles and their entry requirements
• Looking at the individual websites for colleges or sixth forms to find out about the grades you will need to achieve and the application criteria or using our Digital College & Sixth Form Prospectus
• Visiting the UCAS website to find out about higher education courses
• Visiting the apprenticeships.gov.uk to look at different apprenticeship qualifications or ‘standards’
• Exploring different job advertisements on job boards like FindaJob or EmployGM to learn what essential skills and experience employers are asking for
• Speaking to careers mentors, friends or family members to learn about their jobs, careers or employers and learning what skills, experience or qualifications are important for their job

Create your action plan

Once you have researched the essential criteria and entry requirements to achieve your career goal, start thinking about the specific pathways you could choose to progress – for example, what GCSEs you will need to achieve, what BTEC course or A-Levels you would need to study next, which apprenticeships or employers offer the qualifications you need?

Find out what you will need to achieve in terms of skills and work experience and how you could go about doing so. Think about how you would need to evidence that you have gained these skills in a job application, personal statement or interview. Make a list of any skills, experience or qualifications you have already and any gaps you need to address.

Plan out key milestones and success markers

Using the information you have entered, use the diagram on page two to plot out the different stages or ‘milestones’ you will now need to work towards. Remember that it can often take multiple steps to achieve your dream career, so consider how you will do this. Add in your aim, what skills/experience/evidence you will gain and when you hope to achieve this by.