COURSES MODULE

The Courses Module will help you to discover what sort of courses you might like to study. Courses can be generated from your answers to the Careers questionnaire, however, to get a much more accurate list of course recommendations we recommend you take the Courses questionnaire by clicking the button ‘Take Questionnaire’.

To see the results of the Courses or Careers questionnaires you need to follow the onscreen steps (NB STEPS 2-4 ARE ONLY REQUIRED FOR HIGHER EDUCATION COURSES (UNIVERSITIES ETC)):

1) Steps 1-5

Step 1: Tell us where you would like to study using the checkboxes.

Step 2 (HE only): Tell us what sort of entry requirements should the courses have (UCAS points tariff).

Step 3 (HE only): Tell us the type of university you would like to attend.

Step 4 (HE only): Tell us the type of course (degree, foundation etc) you are interested in doing.

Step 5: Tell us the level at which to display the course information (degree level, A-level, GCSE etc).

A list of courses will be displayed on the right of the screen. After completing the Courses questionnaire this list will be accompanied by bars indicating your level of interest. If only the Careers questionnaire has been completed then no bars will accompany the list.

Clicking a course title will open a popup containing 2 tabs: ‘Course List’ and ‘Subject Information’.

2) Course List

This displays a list of institutions that offer your chosen courses on the left-hand side. If it is at the higher education level, clicking on one of these will display all the courses offered at that institution, on the right-hand side, which match, or are similar to, your choice, including JACS codes, entry requirements and links to relevant page of the institutions prospectus.

If they are non-H.E. courses the local area prospectus is opened instead.

3) Subject Information

This contains brief text describing the selected subject area.

SURVEY MODULE

The Survey Module contains both new surveys for you to complete as well as those you have already taken.

1) New Surveys

New Surveys are new blank surveys, forms, questionnaires or other documents that you can complete. Select the survey from the drop down box and click the ‘take survey’ button and follow the on screen instructions.

If you want to exit the survey without saving any changes, click cancel and you will return to the main Survey module.

2) Your Surveys

Your Surveys are surveys that you have already started or completed: select the survey you wish to view from the drop down box, and click the ‘open survey’ button. If the survey is still in use, you will be able to open it and make changes. If the survey has expired, it will be locked: you will be able to view it, but you will not be able to make any changes.

NB. Your adviser will be able to view and print any surveys that you have completed.

GET ON. YOUR WAY. MODULE

The Get On. Your Way module allows you to add different qualifications you are thinking about taking, and see what their impact is on possible careers choices. This tutorial is broken down into 5 sections:

Step 1: What’s already been added?

Qualifications that you have added to the Skills module are displayed with a rosette icon indicating that they are already achieved (or are expected to be achieved). The column on the right of the screen contains all the job suggestions from the careers module.

Step 2: Adding Qualifications

To add qualifications you are thinking of taking:

a) Choose a qualification type in the first dropdown menu (GCSEs, A-Levels, Degree etc).

b) Type the name of the course into the second box, as you start typing a list of courses that match or are similar are displayed, highlight one and click ‘add’.

Step 3: Adding Careers

You can add careers by typing a career into the box under ‘Add Careers’ and choosing one of the options suggested.

Step 4: In line / Caution

Certain careers or courses require specific qualifications to enter. If there is a yellow exclamation mark next to a course or career then this is likely to require additional qualifications. Click any career to investigate the qualification requirements.

Step 5: Further Information

For both careers and qualifications you can click the titles to open a popup with further information. The qualifications popup has a brief description of the chosen course. For careers this popup has 2 tabs; ‘progression route’ (displaying the common routes into a career) and ‘career information’ (describing the career and links to more sources of information).

SKILLS MODULE

The Skills Module will enable you to record or discover any relevant skills you have, or you expect to attain, that will help you attain your choice of career, whether these are specialist skills, qualifications or personal qualities.

The instructions are divided into the three areas: 1) Personal Qualities, 2) Qualifications and 3) Specialist Skills.

1) Personal Qualities

Employers are also interested in what personal qualities you might have, as these will influence the way you perform in your job and how you might fit into their organisation. How you go about your work, your attitude, how motivated or engaged you are, are all important to an employer.

Click the button ‘take questionnaire’ to discover how skilled you see yourself being in 32 areas that our research has found to be important to employers in 9 broad categories.

After finishing the questionnaire a bar chart of the 9 categories is displayed on the left of the screen, click one of the titles to see the individual qualities. Or click ‘full profile’ to see all 32 personal qualities as well as some feedback on what they may mean for you. This report can be printed if required by clicking the ‘view printable report’ link at the bottom of the full profile.

It is possible to retake this questionnaire at any time by clicking the button in the Personal Qualities Panel.

2) Qualifications

Use this middle section to add any qualifications you have already achieved or are expecting to achieve. Select a qualification type (GCSE, A-Levels etc) in the drop down menu, in the second box start typing the name of the qualification (Maths, English etc), find your qualification in the list provided and click add.

Any qualifications you add in this module will appear in Get On. Your Way with a rosette icon indicating achieved.

3) Specialist Skills

If you want to add specialist skills (such as music, IT or sport), indicate those areas where you have a particular skill or talent by clicking the tick box. To read a description of what the specialist skills mean mouse over the red icon.

CAREERS MODULE

The Careers tutorial is divided into 5 areas:

1) Taking the Questionnaire

On your first visit to the careers module you are automatically directed to the careers questionnaire. Follow the onscreen instructions to complete the questionnaire.

2) Personal Summary

The results of your career interest questionnaire are shown on the left in the form of a graph. The longer the bar, the more your responses indicated a preference for that area.

Click on any of the underlined titles in order to see how these interest areas are further broken down.

Mouse-over each of the coloured bars and a pop-up will provide a full description of each individual interest area. In order to see your own personal feedback, click on ‘full profile’ to see a complete report. You can also save or print the detailed report, by clicking the ‘view printable report’ link.

3) Your Careers

This section of the careers module displays careers which may be of interest to you. To see the suggested careers you must first choose an academic level by selecting one of the four options in the middle panel then click ‘update’. A list of careers that match your interests and your selected educational level are then displayed.

To see further information on the career click the info icon, this will open a popup containing two tabs: Progression Route and Career Information.

A) Progression Route

The grid displays graphically the typical routes into hundreds of careers, in terms of the level of qualifications required and whether the route is academic, work-based, work-related, or a mixture. There can be several routes into careers.

In the top-right corner of the popup is a dropdown menu which contains all the careers found in ‘Your Careers’ allowing you to quickly switch between them to find the relevant Progression Route and Career Information.

To see more information on the career click the tab at the top of the popup titled ‘Career Information’.

B) Career Information

On this tab of the pop-up you can read detailed job descriptions, follow links to external information and investigate entry requirements. The drop down menu allowing you to switch between the suggested jobs in ‘Your Careers’ is found in the top right corner.

C) Remove All

The link ‘Remove all’ in ‘Your Careers’ allows you to delete all the recommended jobs to change the educational level.

4) Find a Career

You can add to your list by exploring further careers and qualification levels using the ‘Find a Career’ panel on the right. Use the first drop down to select the qualification level, for additional information on the levels mouse over the green ‘?’.

Use the second drop down to select the type of list; full list or matching my interests. The 'full list' contains all the careers at the chosen qualification level, 'matching my interests' shows the careers at that level which you may be interested in, given your answers to the questionnaire.

Click on a career title to see the progression route and career information pop-up. To add the career to your list click ‘add’.

5) Re-taking the Questionnaire

You have the option to retake the Careers questionnaire at any time by clicking the “Retake” button in the ‘Personal Summary’ section of the careers box. When you have re-taken the questionnaire you are faced with a choice to replace (and permanently delete) the original list of careers suggested with this new list. Or to keep the original list and put the new suggestions into the ‘Find a Career’ panel instead.

If you choose to keep the original list you can find your new suggested careers by choosing an academic level in the first drop down in the investigation box and then choosing ‘matching my interests’ in the second.

Be careful if you choose ‘Replace’ as the original list will be permanently deleted.

PLAN MODULE

The Plan Module is designed to help you to develop an action plan for the future. Use it as your personal To Do list and/or as a record of things you have achieved.

1) Creating a Target

To create a target you need to click 'add new target'. This will bring up a new page where you are asked to type in a target title. You can then add actions you may need to take in order to achieve these targets by clicking 'add new action'. You can input a completion date for a target and can indicate whether it has been achieved or not.

You can add as many targets and actions as you like. To save a target click 'Save'.

2) Your Lists

To help write your targets you can view all the careers and qualifications added to Get On. Your Way. Select the type of list in the dropdown menu on the right of the screen, the list of careers or qualifications appear in the box underneath. You can make any notes you wish by first highlighting a job or course and then typing the notes into the box underneath and clicking ‘save’.

3) Save or Print Your Plan

You can save or print your plans in the same way as Careers and Skills reports can be printed. Click the link 'View Printable Report' and then download the PDF that is produced.