Career Planning

It’s good to start thinking about your career options early, at the beginning of your studies. You will need to make various choices during your studies, and these choices should be informed by your goals. Career planning means you are looking after your own value on the job market and finding a balance that suits you. It also lets employers know about your goals and the actions you have planned to meet them.

You should, however, still leave some room for chance.

A career plan may just be a goal you have in mind, or you can write it down on paper or sketch it out in some other way. It does not need to be a formal document, but rather something that you can change, if the need arises.

Your future place in the world of work is determined by factors such as your major and minor subjects, your work experience and hobbies. Career planning is also influenced by individual choices, skills, strengths, values, motivation, personality and your personal and financial circumstances. Your career planning objectives will be based on your individual circumstances and can be made more concrete e.g. during a career counselling session, as you say them out loud. Making plans will make your dreams and goals clearer.

To help you with your career planning, you can use e.g. the following:

  • The career planning website of the Finnish universities’ career services network
  • The Kudin.fi survey, which is a self-assessment tool intended to support your career planning alongside your studies, helping you identify the areas you should focus on to enhance your career readiness.
  • The The service centre for continuous learning and employment websiteand The Compass Workbook which includes many tools for career planning, job searches and improving your self-knowledge.
  • Also take advantage of the courses OPIS0200 ‘Recognizing Your Own Skills’ and OPIS0140 ´How to Market your Competence in Job Search´ offered by the university that are focused on developing your academic life skills.

Don’t forget you can also get individual career counselling

Career counselling is focused on your individual needs, such as choosing your major or minor subjects or any uncertainty you may have over what your career plan should be like, etc.