Personal Career profile

A Personal Career profile is a combination of what you have to offer (personal profile: knowledge, skills, characteristics, interests, values) and what is asked for and what you would like (labour market: type of organisation, type of work, people, terms of employment). The better you are able to describe both, the better you will be able to make a match and find a suitable job.

PERSONAL CAREER PROFILE:

A job consists of several parts. A job:

• is part of a certain sector (e.g. health care, education, trade, ICT)
• belongs to a certain working field (e.g. health care: youth care, elderly care, social work)
• belongs to an organisation with managers and colleagues within a specific culture
• has certain working conditions (e.g. travelling time) and certain conditions are set for the ability to perform (e.g. experience and skills). 

So, which job suits you is a big question that can be divided into several smaller questions.

Types of work
The part of the Personal career profile that deals with "role" is about which activities you find interesting or fun to perform (e.g. presenting, research, teaching). These may be activities that you have learned about during your studies or outside.

Type of organisation
The part of the Personal career profile that deals with "type of organisation" is about the background of an organisation that appeals to you, such as local/international, size and commercial/non-profit. You can also think of a sector or working field to which an organisation belongs, e.g. telecom or government.

People
The 'people' part of the Personal career profile is about people with whom you work in a job and what you experience as pleasant. This can be about a manager, colleagues and external partners. You can think of (in)formal contact, level of education, degree of freedom and personal attitude (e.g. ambitious, careful, commercial).

Working conditions
The part of the Personal career profile that deals with "employment conditions" concerns all the preconditions that can be important in a job, such as salary, training opportunities and travel time.

You may be at various stages of your (study) career in which you have, to a greater or lesser extent, already found answers to questions about which job suits you. It's good to know that there are many jobs that match your answers or preferences, so you don't have to be looking for that one dream job (of course you can). It is a good starting point to start with the labour market for your specific study programme. However, it does not have to stop there. Your search may extend further, as you could be a good match for many more jobs in perhaps not-so-obvious sectors.