1-2-1 Careers advice and guidance

In the following blogpost a careers meeting is discussed, highlighting professional engagement. Discussions into CV's and placements has also been expressed. 

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When thinking about the opportunities once leaving university, I became somewhat concerned about the prospect of being unemployed. Being originally from a remote area, I believe that staying in a city, preferably Leeds, would be the most relevant location in order for myself to access a design career. In order to gather a greater understanding upon job employability, a 1-2-1 meeting was completed with Sue Holdsworth, from the universities Career employment resource.


As the idea of being unemployment is a great concern to myself, I discussed with Sue whether there would be more jobs in teaching. After discussing the route into teaching, my opinion surrounding the matter changed, as I realised that I was not passionate about it. sue suggested that often graduates do not gain jobs straight away and therefore a job in retail could sustain my life in a city whilst I searched for a design job. Although I would like to leave university with a design job, I realise that the prospect of this isn't as high as I originally thought and thus this may be my best option.


When discussing placements, Sue suggested that getting into contact with alumni through LinkedIn would be an effective method as they themselves have been in a similar situation to myself previously. From this it was decided that I should further contact both elmwood, and spiral communications as they both have creative directors who previously have studied at LAU.


Actions after the session

From attending the session I decided that I should develop my LinkedIn portfolio before contacting professionals in order to 'sell' myself as strongly as possible. My previous LinkedIn page only contained by name, a profile photo and my education at LAU. The following steps were completed in order to make my page more appealing.

• Design related profile photograph myself at an exhibition) and cover photo (a piece of my work).
• Adding other education, and work experience in which relates to the design industry. 
• Adding interests and specific design areas in which I would like to focus. 
• Following allumi and companies in which I would like to work for
• Connecting with over 800 individuals in order to get my name not there, and make links with a range of designers/creative directors.