Career planning steps
Where do I position myself?
Today's world of work demands that you increasingly and self-responsibly take control of your own career. Personal career development can and wants to be less and less determined by an organisation. Therefore, once external guidelines are eliminated, an "inner compass" is needed to control your own career. These questions will help you reflect on your skills, interests, values, and goals.
Labour market exploration / career prospects
There are several options to get to know the purposes of their own skills and interests, the opportunities of the labour market. This handout contains various career-related research sources. On our website you will also find a programme-specific overview of occupational fields for Bachelor's and Master's degrees.
Goal setting and career planning
Planning a perfectly exact career path is impossible, because the world of work is constantly changing and even your personal life situation changes in ways which are not always predictable. Therefore, career planning is not about making a solid decision for all times for a specific professional path, it is rather an ongoing process of adapting to unexpected opportunities or external factors. It is much more a reflection process, which includes the following considerations.
Making career goals concrete
In order to make your career goals more concrete, it is helpful to reflect on them again and again in terms of timeframe, actuality or outcome. This table shows what stage you have reached in the realisation of your goal.
In addition to technical skills, key qualifications play an important role for a successful career. You can train and build up them up not only during your studies, but also outside the university:
| Training opportunities at the University | for the following skills |
| Planning your time within your studies: exam Preparation, planning as well as determining and reviewing your own learning goals and processes | Self-management, time management, organisational skills, ability to reflect, independence |
| Presentations and speeches | Presentation skills, facilitation skills, public speaking, stress resistance, criticism |
| Regular attendance at lectures | Perseverance, reliability |
| Practice projects | Project management, independence, experience in practice |
| Attending multidisciplinary events | Interdisciplinary work, initiative, understanding for other subject-based cultures |
| Independent work within a group | Team spirit, capacity to cooperate, initiative, reliability, openness, capacity to make contacts |
| Dealing with literature, information, media | Media literacy, information literacy, methods literacy, innovative spirit |
| Training possibilities outside of the University | for the following skills |
| Internships, activities a tutor, working as assistant student, voluntary work in associations, societies, student initiatives | Commitment, practical experience, initiative, teamwork, openness, social skills, project management |
| Stays abroad | Language skills, mobility, flexibility, intercultural skills, organisation skills |
Professional life / career success
Work experience provides an excellent opportunity to get to know different areas of activity and sectors of industries within a limited time. An analysis of further planning necessary for your professional future may be helpful. The following questions can serve as example to draw up a resume for your future career.