Page 247 - CAO_handbook_2025 Entry 2

6.1. Find out what You're Good at
How do I decide what to study?
You may be feeling quite stressed out about making this BIG decision and unsure how to choose a career that will be right for you... Well – relax, follow these self-help steps, including the quiz on your working personality, and you'll be a whole lot more equipped to make a good choice when you're done!
Knowing which careers or jobs suit you is a process of discovery. The 'Helping you decide on your career' section is about finding out what you are good at, what kind of person you are, what careers are out there and then matching this information together. It's also about listening to your gut feeling because you are the expert on yourself! Very often you actually know what career directions seem interesting to you, but you may need some confirmation of this in order to feel more confident about your choice.
The CAO has included this section to give you more information to help you make your choices. Choosing what to study and knowing what career direction this will lead you to is a really important choice that will affect you for a long time. So, put in the effort to gather the right information about yourself and your career choices.
Self-help steps
On a scale of 1 to 10, rate how ready you feel to make a career choice?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 means that you feel very unprepared and 10 means you feel you have all the information you need to make a good choice. If you've chosen a number less than 10, you need more preparation, so keep going!
SECTION SIX ›› HELPINGYOUTO DECIDE ONYOUR CAREER
Okay, let's get started with gathering more information to help you to make a good study choice.
Knowing yourself
To learn more about yourself, you're going to need a pen, no really, you're going to need to go and get a pen; you've got some self exploring to do!
Look at the descriptions below.
For each number, choose either the grey description or the red. Circle the one that sounds most like you.
'People's person'
'Your own person'
Confident with large groups of people
Someone who enjoys smaller groups of people
Inspired and energised by being with people a large portion of the day
Someone who enjoys their own company
Friendly and outgoing
Reserved and often a 'deep thinker'
A person who has a wide social network
Comfortable spending time 'one on one' with a good friend or a few close friends
Spending the whole weekend going out with friends and family sounds like fun
Having some time with friends and family as well as having some space sounds relaxing
Using a different colour pen, ask someone who knows you well to circle the descriptions they think sound like you. On what side do you have more circled descriptions?
GREY – Many GREY answers suggest that you enjoy spending time with many different people for a large part of your day, and meeting new people. Your future career probably needs to focus a lot on people.
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