When you leave school and are looking to enter into the world of work it can be difficult to pick a job, especially if you’re not sure what you want to do with your life in the long term. There are some jobs that offer progression opportunities and the opportunity to allow people to move into a range of careers, and are therefore useful for people who are still trying to choose their direction. Here’s a few great jobs for people who have just left school.
Book Keeping
Book keeping is an entry-level task that has a lot of utility behind it. You can get book keeping qualifications for a fairly low price, and the experience you gain doing the books for a small business will stand you in good stead if you then decide that you want to move on to do other things, such as accounting or financial services. If you end up deciding that book keeping is boring and that you would rather do something else, you still have experience working in an office, showing attention to detail, and handling financial records – all things that will transfer to other work.
Personal Assistant
Personal assistants help executives to organise their life. They deal with incoming calls, book appointments, screen emails, manage travel, and generally make the executive’s life easier. This is a job that exposes you to a lot of different tasks. You may decide that you like reception work, that the job the executive is doing is interesting, or that booking travel is fun and you’d enjoy being a travel agent.
Traffic Control
To become a traffic controller, you will probably need to get your White Card, but that card will qualify you to work in a number of different environments, including on construction sites. Check out this blog post for more details on what is required. You will gain experience in working in potentially hazardous environments, and it’s a job where your brain will constantly be engaged. If you like the industry, you have the opportunity to move up to becoming a team leader or even a site leader.
Security
Depending on your age and your confidence, security is a good option. There are a lot of different types of security job. Bar work can be stressful if you live in an area where alcohol culture is a problem, but event security and security at airports is generally lower hassle. Many people use part time security work to help pay their way through college.
Kitchen Work
Kitchen work is another form of work that is good for people who want to take casual shifts, with the possibility of more work later. If you can work in the right establishments then you could make good money out of tips. A lot of people start in general kitchen work, washing dishes, cleaning, etc and then move up to being a line cook and eventually a chef. You will need a food hygiene certificate to get started, and from there you will find training opportunities to build up a career. Be aware that this is a fast paced and challenging industry.