Identifying career opportunities

Even if you’ve decided you want to work in North Yorkshire, it can feel quite overwhelming sometimes, looking for your next job. I’m going to give you all the tools you need to find career opportunities that suit you.

Start off by embracing unexpected opportunities, as they can lead to new and exciting paths you might not have considered before! Planned Happenstance theory, developed by Professor John Krumboltz, recognises that opportunities can present themselves unexpectedly, and that by limiting our options by focussing on a very detailed plan, we might miss out on amazing opportunities. These unexpected opportunities can play a huge role in life and work. For example, a chance conversation at a career fair could introduce you to a role you hadn’t considered, or a two internship might lead to a full-time position in a field you’re passionate about and work in for the next few years.

Staying open to these surprises can help you discover new directions and enrich your career journey. Many people actually start careers or jobs through pure luck, indecision, spontaneity or a chance encounter. If you keep an open mind, you might be more inclined to embrace new opportunities, branch out, and discover new things and experiences. This can contribute to your ‘squiggly career’ that we talked about earlier!

To embrace new opportunities, you should show:

• Curiosity: Be willing to explore new opportunities and try new things.
• Persistence: Expect, and effectively deal with, any setbacks you encounter.
• Optimism: Positively evaluate your future prospects.
• Flexibility: Welcome the variety of events and circumstances that come your way.

Have you experienced something unexpected or random happen which led you to discovering something new?

Modern ‘planned happenstance’ career

At the bottom of this step as a PDF, you’ll see what a ‘planned happenstance’ career might look like – taking opportunities that come up and making changed based on the information you have at the time. One thing you’ll notice is that right towards the end (not of your career, but the diagram!) there’s time and space for reflection. This is something you should do frequently throughout your career journey, considering the steps you’ve taken and the ones you might want to take. This might even help you to identify more career opportunities, by thinking about the things you’ve done and your aspirations for the future.