Applying for jobs when you still have no idea what you want to do

As I’m in final year now I’ve felt the pressure mounting, from both myself and external forces, to find a job for next year when I’m thrown into the real world and released from the uni bubble. Job hunting was initially, and still is to some extent, a daunting prospect as I still had no clue what career I wanted to go into even after four years at uni.

I started thinking broadly and looking up grad schemes as I’d heard good things and fancied the prospect of being trained and learning whilst I work. I soon started to stumble upon really interesting looking schemes in commercial and customer management, which involve dealing with brands and retail markets. This is something I’ve had a lot of experience in as I’ve worked part-time for a supermarket since I was sixteen, and I realised I had picked up a lot of skills and commercial acumen from my experience in retail and customer service. It occurred to me that whilst I don’t necessarily want to go back to working as a customer assistant I could definitely use these skills and my passion for customer service and sales and apply them to a more senior and managerial role.

I’ve therefore been applying for a range of grad schemes in customer and commercial management and am going to continue to look for more jobs in this area. I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you’re struggling to think about what career you want or are feeling daunted by the prospect of finding a job, start with what you know and what you’re good at and you’ll soon start to find things that you may never have considered before but could be perfectly suited to you!

Fingers crossed all this positive thinking will help my job hunt!