Planting the seed for my career readiness tree…

Eleri Griffiths
3 min readApr 26, 2021

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A reflection of career uncertainty as well as originality within my CV

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

From a young age, I have always been obsessed with planning for the future, getting frustrated when my ambitions change. I have had goals of becoming a teacher, police officer, paramedic, mental health nurse…the list could go on.

I have realised that despite these changing ambitions, they all centre around one topic- PEOPLE. I know that I want a socially driven job, one that involves helping those in need.

More recently, my focus has shifted towards a career in sports psychology, a growing field of psychology lacking opportunities of experience. Consequently, I began this academic year worried about having the skills for this career and whether this would impact on my tendency to have a strict future plan in place.

Completion of the Digital Skills and Confidence Scale highlighted that I am not alone:

38% of students in my cohort did not feel confident about their career options, changing my perspective about the necessity to have a concrete career plan. I realised that IT IS OKAY to be unsure about the future.

My confidence has increased whereby I now know a change of mindset is not a setback, rather a growth towards my future career, a career in which I can access help for by the university. For example, through the careers website, I have managed to find a coaching opportunity so I can begin to work out whether this career path is still of interest to me.

The move away from a generic to an original CV…

Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash

My CV at the start of the year included concise lists of achievements and experiences, lacking specific, personal examples about why these make me a great candidate for various roles.

The CV assignment allowed me to improve my CV with help from the careers website. For example, I had previously listed my qualification in Sports Leadership without any further description. I have now included an example of specific experience:

“Responsible for working in a team and organising the County School Games for over 4,500 school children, demonstrating my excellent communication skills”

I achieved a first-class grade in this assignment, highlighting the effectiveness of an enhanced personal CV, especially in current times where finding and keeping jobs proves difficult.

I now accept that a concrete plan is subject to change but this is manageable with the strategies available, a versatile and original CV and help from the careers service.

So, what have I learnt to use in the future? My advice to undergraduates…

Get help when it is available

Reviewing career goals is not a failure

Originality is key

Worrying about certainty prolongs accepting uncertainty

These strategies have planted the seed to GROW towards being career ready for the future, a future which I am now excited rather that stressed about.

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