Your career pathway
Your career pathway is the unique route you choose, from
the many routes available, to reach your career goals.
Your career pathway will involve you completing formal and
informal learning, developing your skills and experiencing
education and training, community and personal life.
Hints to help you along the way include:
Education and
training pathways
In Australia, the qualifications you gain at schools,
vocational education and training providers and
universities can be linked up in different ways, so that
you can reach your career goal by many different
pathways.
Recognition of prior learning (RPL) allows you to get
credit for your existing knowledge and skills, such as
your:
- life experience (e.g. voluntary work, hobbies, sport)
- work experience (including unpaid work)
- previous study (e.g. courses at school or college,
adult education classes, training and professional
development programs at work).
Go to the Australian
Qualifications Framework website to find out about
the way qualifications can be linked, and about RPL.
Community pathways
Urban, rural and remote communities can do a lot to support
informal learning. Some of the best learning happens when
people think and act together:
- across age groups
- inclusive of men and women
- using existing networks
- with employers
- with local learning leaders
- with community owned and managed organisations.
Community organisations can tell you about services and
programs that exist to help you take your next career step.
Make the most of community pathways and partnerships as you
work towards the career you want.
Personal pathways
To plan a personal pathway, you need to know:
- what you like
- what’s important to you
- what you’re good at
- who the people in your personal network are.
You need to consider your past decisions and experiences,
your existing skills, your ambitions for the future and any
information or advice you’ve discovered about your desired
career.
Pathways intersect
Personal, community and educational pathways often cross
and influence and each other.
For example, community activities you’ve been involved
in, such as volunteer community radio broadcasting, can
influence educational choices you make—the school
subjects or further education courses you choose. And you
would have built up a valuable personal network while at
the radio station, too.
Opportunities, new experiences, barriers and constraints
you encounter as you move along your career pathway can
make a difference to the direction you take at any point
where there is a choice.
The more actively you explore the different routes you
can take towards your goals, the more choice you’ll
discover.
A careers advisor can help you, if you’re having trouble
seeing how your education, community and personal
pathways interrelate, and what your choices are.
Navigate with care
Following your career pathway means making some choices.
Ask yourself these questions:
- What have I learnt from my life experiences that I want
to use in my career?
- What career fields am I interested in?
- What pathways could I take to get to those career
fields?
- Do I need to take a course at a tertiary institution (a
private college, TAFE or university)?
- What are the entry requirements for those institutions?
- When I finish the course, what jobs will I qualify for?
- Who do I know who can help me?
- What resources and networks does my community have to
offer?
- How can I use my personal networks of family, friends
and associates to build my career?
Base your career and educational choices on who you are
today. You can always change the course of your pathway in
the future, as you yourself, and your desires, change.
Find out more
Aboriginal and Islander Career Aspiration
Pathways Program (AICAP)
This site provides up-to-date information for students,
caregivers, school and support staff on traineeships,
cadetships and apprenticeships, and training providers.
Dusseldorp
Skills Forum
This independent, non-profit association aims to stimulate
innovative educational developments, to promote the
importance of the workforce in Australia’s continuing
development, and to encourage the formation of skills and
personal effectiveness, particularly by young people.