If you have a question, send it to careerhelp@kent.ac.uk and we will do our best to answer within three working days.
Answers to the following questions can be found in the online version of this email athttp://www.kent.ac.uk/ces/files/newsletters.html – open the latest vacancy email and scroll down to questions.

> Some jobs I’m looking at applying for ask me to fill out an “equal opportunities form“, which asks me to list my background and religious information. What is the purpose of this? Obviously some of these things aren’t concrete, so is there any tangible benefit to appearing as one option over another? And what is the effect of answering “prefer not to say”?

This is just for monitoring purposes and will play no part at at all in the selection.

It just tells the company what percentage of candidates come from each ethnic group etc. so they can target their advertising if particular groups are under-represented

> I was wondering if you could give me some information on translating jobs, i.e. if there are organisations that might be useful in my search.

See our page on translating and interpreting careers http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/workin/translating.htm

> I would like to become a chiropractor

Chiropractic treatment involves manipulating the joints, muscles and tendons, to offer pain relief. The profession is growing and experienced chiropractitioners may earn over £50,000 p.a. Most are self-employed.
See our page on nursing and therapies http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/workin/nursing.htm

> Please forward to me any vacancies for jobs in the civil service.

See http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/sitesgov.htm for public sector vacancy sources

> I heard of something called an e-tray exercise. How do I prepare for this?

See our page on e-trays which includes examples http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/interviews/intray.htm

> I really have no idea of what career to enter. Can you help me?

This is one we get many times of course, so here is some advice based on our combined 100+ years of experience here!
First get a folder to store the following information!

• Work out what your main skills are and what evidence you have for these. If you can’t sell to the employer that you have the appropriate skills requiredyou are unlikely to get to interviews and if you do get them, you won’t get offers. Do this by doing the exercises athttp://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/sk/skillsmenu.htm in particular the skills map http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/sk/skillsmap.htm and skills inventory http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/sk/skillsinventory.html
• Check out your interests, values (sometimes called motivators), strengths and personality type. Whereas your skills help you to be successful in a job your interests and values help you to make sure you enjoy it. See http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/Choosing/ChoosingCareer.htm for exercises.
• Try the Prospects Planner http://www.prospects.ac.uk/links/Pplanner computer program which will suggest which graduate jobs match these skills, interests and values. The Careers Map may also help herehttp://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/careermap.htm
• See what other graduates in your degree subject from Kent have gone on to do http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/degreein.htm
• Write down all the jobs which are being suggested by the above sources (and any other sources) which you feel might be of interest. You might have a list of 10 to 20 possible jobs. You may find most of the jobs cluster into a particular group (helping and teaching, media and creative, highly paid professions etc.) – this is a good sign!
• Now you have to research these jobs. Use our “I Want to Work in …”Pages for detailed information on many graduate jobshttp://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/workin.htm  By carefully researching the jobs you may be able to cross some off the list. For example to become a lawyer you will have to do an expensive postgraduate course which you may not be able to fund; if you live in the South-West it may be difficult to get into publishing without relocating as there aren’t many publishing houses in that area.
• Next step is to try to talk to people doing the job.  You should try to narrow down your list of jobs to no more than three if you wish to have the time to target them all effectively.
• Find the appropriate vacancy sources: some areas such as computing and finance are well represented in our vacancy databass https://www.kent.ac.uk/ces/vacancies.html other areas such as Heritage Management require specialist sources which you will find listed on our “I Want to Work in …”Pages http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/workin.htm
• Make sure you have a targeted CV aimed at the job demonstrating the skills mentioned abovehttp://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/cv/cvexamples.htm  Obviously you may need help with allthe above. You can visit us, ring us 01227 823299, or email us for help http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/emailform.html

This is one way of choosing a career, but many graduates drift into a temporary job to pay off debts, find they enjoy it, and eventually work their way up into a professional position in a niche that suits them without doing any of the above!