Planning your next career move Redundancy - your next steps
Redundancy can be a challenging experience, but it can also be the catalyst for a positive career change, giving you the chance to take a career break or explore an entirely new direction.
Make a plan
When faced with redundancy, to help you focus on what your next steps are, have a clear career planning process. If you're an apprentice with us and have been made redundant, contact us as soon as you can to discuss your next steps for your apprenticeship.
Completing a self-analysis, such as SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats), may help you identify the main aim and potential challenges for a specific goal you have in mind. You may find completing career self assessments useful.
Review your skills
Employers are said to ‘hire for attitude and train to skill’ so even if you do not meet all the criteria for the job, if you have the essential requirements, don’t disregard it. Discover how your experience and talent can successfully transfer across multiple industries by conducting a skills audit.
Be proactive
Researching the local and national job market will also help you to see the types of opportunities you have open to you. OU students can search for opportunities including experienced roles, graduate schemes and work experience on OpportunityHub.
For further insight such as average salaries, employment growth and unemployment rates across different occupations, find out how to use Labour market information.
Redundancy gave me the chance to take stock and think about what I wanted from a job. I was able to get jobs more locally and cut out a lot of travelling time which had been a big issue. It also forced me to make the change that I had talked about for a while.
Justin
Choose a career that suits you
Whilst looking for job opportunities, take some time to think about what motivates you in a role, the types of professions that are related to your studies, skills and strengths and how your interests can be become part of your day job. Choosing a career that suits you walks you through how to determine the roles that are a suitable match and where to find them.
If you need any further advice and guidance from a careers consultant, you can book a careers appointment.
Redundancy is an opportunity to learn, grow, discover, try something new. Yes, you need to sort out your finances and the unknown can be stressful. But the transition period, the financial insecurity - it doesn't last. You look back and it's just a short period of economising. You will get by, you will survive. And then you'll start to thrive.
David
