Having identified your interests, you could try to explore careers that involve them.
- Can you turn any of these interests into a career?
- Can you work in an industry associated with these interests? Or in its supply chain?
- Designing or manufacturing the products, retailing the product, marketing or financing it?
- Managing the legal affairs for it?
- Managing the venue?
- Writing about it?
Here’s a mind map of one interest, 'Football', exploring associated career options.
Create your own
Identify one of your main interests that you might like to incorporate into your working life and click on the graphic below to download a mind mapping exercise into your portfolio. Have a go at mind mapping some potential career ideas. If you feel inspired, repeat the task with other interests.
Hopefully this task will have encouraged you to think about your interests and the things you enjoy. This can be a useful starting point for identifying careers that give you the scope to pursue your interests, turning what could be simply ‘a job’ into something that inspires, engages and motivates you.
Keep this list of interests as you may be able to build upon it over time. You may also want to talk to friends, family or Careers Advisers to see if they can help you expand your mind map of potential jobs related to your interest.
Reading specialist papers, magazines or following social media related to the areas you are interested in may also help you to expand your ideas and identify job roles or opportunities you never knew existed. Be open minded, find out more - you may be able to find/create a job idea you’ll love.
On the next page we look at how we can incorporate interests into our occupational choices.
