My Career Roadmap

Once you have an idea of where you want to get to, you can start thinking about the different stages involved in your career journey. 

By understanding where you are now, ‘My Career Roadmap’ helps you start thinking about the skills, qualifications, training and experience you need to acquire to fulfil your career goals. You can find these out by looking at job descriptions, job advertisements or role profiles and reading through the job requirements and person specifications. You can use this information to set ‘milestones’ or ‘markers’ to map out your next steps, as well as adding dates of when you hope to achieve them by.

How to use

This worksheet will help you identify where you are now, where you want to get to, and what skills, qualifications, training and experience are required at different stages to help you progress.

Start by entering your current position. This could be ‘at school’ or ‘studying for your GCSEs’ for example.

Then enter your chosen career. This could be a broad industry you wish to work in (such as ‘legal’ or ‘construction’ for example) or a specific job title (such as ‘Dentist’ or ‘Graphic Designer’ for example).

Then, using the boxes at the bottom, make a list of the skills required (such as problem solving, communication, leadership etc.) and find out the qualifications or training courses that are necessary. The National Careers Service website is a useful tool to explore the job roles in different industries sectors and learn about their entry requirements.

Some of these qualifications may take a few years to gain and be required in a particular order. Think about where you might need to study them and what grades/pass marks might be needed.

Next, you can look up job advertisements for matching roles to see what experience employers are asking for. You can then start to think about how you might gain this experience or evidence. This could be done by completing work experience, or by volunteering or having a part-time job. You might even be able to show you have experience through your hobbies and interests – for example, making your own products and selling them online, or running a community group.

Think about the goals you will need to achieve in order to be successful in your chosen career. This make include gaining 12 months+ work experience at a particular level before gaining a promotion, or working for a couple of different companies to broaden your experience. Perhaps you need to work for another company before launching your own business idea, or start at the bottom before working your way up to a managerial post.

Finally, consider the different stages involved in achieving your career progress. Use the milestone boxes to enter key dates and achievements you will need along the way and set yourself small targets to work towards over the coming months or years.

Well done! You know have a roadmap in place for your future career to start working towards!