3 Reviewing and strengthening
Before writing your action plan, you need to give yourself space to review what you have done on the course, and to revisit any aspects that you need to complete, or about which you want to think more deeply.
Activity 2 Filling in the gaps
Table 1 is provided to remind you of the kinds of activity you covered in each week. Use your thoughts in your notebook, to decide which activities you might need to devote some time to this week before moving on. Identify those activities you need to:
- revisit (in order to cover an area in more depth or to do a bit more thinking or work on)
- do for the first time.
Make further notes in your notebook or in the ‘My note’ column of Table 1 in the Resource pack.
| Week | Key topics/activities | My note |
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| 1 | ‘Wants’ from work Workline – influences on you so far Beliefs and values Interests and passions Constraints and limitations |
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| 2 | Knowledge and skills Roles in life Skills acquired in work, learning and life |
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| 3 | Work you want to do Market for work and matching it Finding out about types of work Working patterns and options |
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| 4 | Work experience placement Finding work experience Benefiting from work experience Voluntary work and how to find it Learning review of the course so far |
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| 5 | Networking What it is and why to do it Types of networking Mapping out your own network Using networks to obtain work Social networks and registering online |
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| 6 | Analysing job advertisements Matching skills to job advertisements STAR and RAPPAS techniques Completing application forms CVs – and the different types LinkedIn profile creation |
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| 7 | Interviews and how to approach them Types of interviews Types of interview question Preparing for interviews Performing in interviews Following up from interviews |
Now identify three priority areas you want to review this week. You can always go back to the lesser priorities later. For now, focus on the things that will help you to decide where to focus your energy once the course ends.
Write down your priorities in your notebook.
Try to make your ideas about what you need to do quite specific. So, instead of writing ‘look again at interviews’, for example, write something like ‘practise answers to competency-based questions’ or ‘practise (with a friend) giving my answers in a confident voice’.
Copy this table into your notebook or you can complete it in your Resource pack [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .
| Priority Area | Why | What do I need to do? |
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Once you have your priorities, you are in a good position to decide how best to use your time this week. The activity in the next section is one which you construct (in part) yourself, as it focuses on your priorities.