Kudos - Find Your Career Direction Program from CASCAID

Kudos - ‘find your career direction’ program from CASCAID

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Here are some of the things you can do on Kudos:

Read useful articles on education and employment topics, e.g. apprenticeships, GCSE Options, Higher Education- An Introduction (Next Steps > General Information)
Get detailed job information using the A-Z of careers (List of Careers > Search Careers)
Find out about careers using subjects that you are interested in (List of Careers > Subjects I Like)
Create your CV (Opens in a new window) (Next Steps > CV Builder)
Draft your UCAS Personal Statement (Next Steps > Information for Your Personal Statement and UCAS personal Statement)
Search for a degree (Next Steps > Uni Search)
Raise your aspirations (Next Steps > Future Booster) by showing you the new careers if you choose a higher level qualification
Complete your personal profile in stages to get matched job suggestions:
From the Kudos landing page choose I don’t know what career I want to do. Answer either or both of the questions under My qualifications and then complete the My Likes & Dislikesquestionnaire. When you have answered the 50 questions, go to List of Careers > Careers You Might Like to see your list of job suggestions
Refine your profile by reviewing your likes and dislikes (My Answers > Review Likes & Dislikes), answering more questions (My Answers > Answer More Likes & Dislikes), rate and/or review your skills (My Answers > Review Skills) and adding any personal health issues (About Me > My Health)
Compare up to three careers side-by-side
Keep a record of your career thinking and plans:
Make a list of the careers you actively want to find out more about and record the actions you are going to take (About Me > My Action Plan > My Top Careers)
Set target grades for the subjects you are studying and record the actions you are going to take (About Me > My Action Plan > Subjects Studying)
Make a list of the uni courses you actively want to find out more about and record the actions you are going to take (About Me > My Action Plan > My Uni Courses)
Share your thinking and plans with a teacher or adviser and get more help
Find out the rules about part-time work for under 16-year-olds (Next Steps > General Information > Young Workers)

Years 7-13: Searching for job information using Kudos

Suggested activities

Under List of Careers, select Search Careers. You can interrogate the information about individual jobs in a number of ways:

Enter a job title in the search box
Use any of the three search filters (‘Type of Work’, ‘Industry’ and ‘Salary Range’) to narrow down your job suggestions
Browse the A-Z of careers

You can do detailed research on any jobs that really interest you. Click the job title or ‘Tell me more’. Read ‘Job Prospects’ to find out about the broad number of jobs available and whether or not this is likely to grow. Click on stickers to get detailed job information, view videos and photos and read ‘real lives’ articles.
Kudos has identified 111 ‘areas of work’ or career clusters (Look for Areas of Work under List of Careers). You can click an area of work, read about it and see a list of jobs related to it, e.g. advanced engineering has links to 27 jobs.

Year 9:Exploring subject options

Suggested activities

Choose General Information under Next Steps and read the articles on GCSE Options and GCSEs and How You Can Use Them. Also read the school’s own options booklet.
Go to Subjects I Like under List of Careers and select ‘GCSE’ in the Qualification box of Kudos to get the information you need for this activity. Choose a subject that you are thinking of studying at Key Stage 4:

(a)What could you use a qualification in the subject for?

(b)Identify your top five skills that the subject will teach you

(c)List up to ten jobs that interest you which a study of the subject is useful or a requirement for

(d)Choose two or three subjects and explain what they are a useful combinationfor.

Choose a job that interests you. Read the information that Kudos has about it. Explain:

(a)why you think it would suit you

(b)what you would need to do to improve your chances of getting a job like that.

Years 10-11: Discovering your occupational interests

Suggested activities:

Login and from the landing page click I don’t know what career I want to do. Answer either or both of the questions under My qualifications and then complete the 50 questions in the My Likes & Dislikes questionnaire.
Choose Careers you might like from the drop-down menu under List of Careers. You will see a list of matched job suggestions. The program compares your answers with the demands of the job and tells you if the job is a very good (***), good (**) or fair (*) match for you. You can decide how you want to use this information. Here are some suggestions:

Click ‘Tell me more’ if you would like to read detailed information about any of the job suggestions
Click ‘Is this right for me?’ to help you understand why the program has matched you to this job and how good the match is
Click ‘Add to Compare’ for up to three jobs and then click ‘Compare Careers’ to see a pop-up chart which compares the jobs according to the overall match with your interests, salary information and most important features of the jobs
Select any jobs that you would like to add to your list of My Top Careers in My Action Plan by clicking the heart-shaped icon. Your selection will be saved by Kudos so that you can look at them the next time you log in.
You can improve the quality of the matching process by answering further questions.
Answer the My Health questions under About Me.
Choose Answer more Likes & Dislikes under My Answers.
Choose Review Skills under My answers and answer the 45 questions about your skill levels

Year 11: Choosing your options at 16+

Suggested activities

Choose General Information under Next Steps and read the articles on Options at 16, AS Level and A Level Decisionsand Further Education Options. You need to read these in conjunction with the information provided by your school and other local learning providers. Remember that you will need to continue to study English and maths if you do not pass them at level 2.
Go to Subjects I Like under List of Careers and select ‘A-level’ in the Qualification box. Click any subjects in red that you might be thinking of studying at A-level to find out where they could lead. You can also print out these articles or email them to yourself.
You can get career match suggestions for individual subjects (e.g. biology) and for subject combinations (e.g. biology and chemistry) by clicking the ‘Love’ or ‘Like’ boxes and browsing the list of job suggestions.
It is worth thinking now about what you might choose at 18+ (the next decision point) while still keeping your options open. You can find articles on further and higher education and employment (including ‘Options at 18+’ and ‘Apprenticeships’) in General Information under Next Steps.
Test out your career thinking by talking to your parents/carers, teachers and careers adviser about what you have found out through Kudos.

Years 11-13: Producing a CV

Suggested activities:

If you are not sure what a CV is and what it is used for, read the ‘Job Applications’ article in General Information (under Next Steps)
Click CV Builder under Next Steps (opens in a new window) and follow the instructions and advice given. Do not give your home address unless you have a specific reason for doing so at this stage. If you are including the names of referees, ask their permission first.
Think about the quality of your CV. You will be able to improve your CV by using words and phrases that you have taken from articles.You can also use the personal information you have created and stored on Kudos to help you fill out your CV, e.g. if you have used features such as target-setting in the subjects you’re studying and recording your grades (Look at My Subjects under About Me)
Remember to download and save your CV as a Word document as it is not stored on Kudos.
You can change the formatting and appearance of your CV once you have saved it as a Word document.

Year 12: Choosing your options at 18+

Suggested activities:

Kudos has a wide range of articles to help you choose your post-18 career pathway. Choose General Information under Next Steps and select relevant articles to read such as ‘Options at 18+’, ‘Apprenticeships’, ‘Jobs after A levels or Equivalent’, ‘One A Level? (How to Use It)’, ‘Self-Employment’, ‘Voluntary Work’ and the various articles on choosing higher education.

Year 12: Investigating Higher Education

Suggested activities:

Under Next Steps, select Uni Search. You can filter the information about degree courses in a number of ways:

Enter a degree subject in the keyword search box
Select one of the 11 regions in the UK or select ‘non-UK’
Enter the name of a higher education provider in the institution search box
Select the course type, e.g. degree, foundation degree, HNC, HND

Click the title of any course listed and the UCAS search tool will open in a new window giving you a direct link to the detailed course information.

Year 13: Writing your Personal Statement

Suggested activities:

Under Next Steps, select Information for your Personal Statement. Use the prompts that Kudos providesto produce your own guidance text that you can refer to when you come to draft your UCAS personal statement. You can add evidence under the three headings: ‘My Achievements’, ‘Study Skills’ and ‘My Strengths’. You can edit/delete text until you are satisfied with it.
Under Next Steps, select UCAS Personal Statement. Use the personal statement guidance to help you structure your personal statement. Kudos provides good and bad examples to guide you in writing each section of your statement and brings up your personal guidance text to remind you of things you can put in your statement (Whatever you do, do not copy the Kudos good practice examples!).
Your tutor or careers adviser can give you feedback on your draft personal statement if you send them a feedback request. Alternatively, you can copy and paste your draft statement into a Word document and email it to them outside of Kudos.

Years10-13: Preparing for a discussion with a careers adviser or teacher

Suggested activities:

Complete all the sections of My Action Plan (Click My Action Plan under About Me) that are relevant to your situation before your meeting with a careers adviser or teacher and ask them to look at it (Do this by requesting ‘Teacher’s feedback’ or printing out your action plan as a pdf.) It will save time in the interview and provide a focus for your discussion.