Once you have done your due diligence and researched different careers and job profiles online, and narrowed down your options, what's your next step?

It's spending time reflecting on the remaining options and then speaking to people already working in those roles.

What does all that mean for you?

You've found out as much as you can about the different career pathways that really inspire you and now you need to reflect a little more on what that means for you. What are the skills they look for? Where might you need to upskill? Are there qualifications or additional training that you'd need to have? What salary can you expect? Would this appeal to the kind of lifestyle you want? What would your day-to-day working life look like? Be honest with yourself, can you see yourself doing that five days a week? Be proactive, what work experience could you start building up now that would be useful and position you well in the future? How quickly could you progress in that career? Look at market trends for graduate jobs, there is a lot of data about different sectors; find out which are growing, which are shrinking. Are you prepared to relocate? Share with family and friends and ask them what they could see you doing? They can see things in us that we often overlook.

Bring your research to life

LinkedIn is the world's largest professional networking platform and a huge resource for you. You already know how to network online; you do it every day- this is just a platform with a different kind of atmosphere and way of operating but one that can help you build your professional visibility and influence. Now you have narrowed your options down and identified interesting job titles and job profiles, you can bring them to life by using LinkedIn to research people with those job titles and explore how they developed their career to end up where they have. Reach out and speak to them and ask for an informational interview.

Final thought

Researching online is one way to build up your knowledge of what is available. In other articles, we'll be looking at other ways too. Making career decisions can feel daunting but if you have done your research and planned, the decisions you make will be the best ones you can make. No one can be 100% certain about any decision and this one will be the next decision of many that you will be making about your career. You're doing great!

Suggested Reading

> Creating a great LinkedIn profile step by step

 > How to start working out what would suit you

> How to start working out what would suit you

By Anna Gordon - Certified Business Coaching Psychologist ABP CBCP