What do you do for work do you like it

Work is something most of us engage in at some point – in fact, it’s estimated that we spend around one third of our lives at work, so it also tends to be a big part of our identity. But why do we work? Even if it’s a necessity, it’s still a conscious choice we make. Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why we work – they might help you figure out what you want your future career to look like.

The main reason we work

The main reason most people get up and go to work every day is pretty simple: they do it to earn money. In today’s world, we need money for:

Paying for the home we live in
Getting around (fuel for the car, public transport, a bike, etc.)
Buying food, clothes, and other things we need
Paying bills, like water, phone, internet, and electricity
Going on holidays and doing fun stuff
Buying luxuries and things we don’t need but want
Saving so you can enjoy your retirement when you eventually stop working
To spend on our loved ones

Just remember that not everyone is lucky enough to be able to work; and if you can’t work for some reason, that’s OK too. Not working doesn’t de-value you as a person, and it do

Life’s Too Short: 4 Reasons to Do What You Love for a Living

You’ve heard the cliche that life is too short. You don’t know what tomorrow brings or where you’ll end up. So why waste your time in a career that doesn’t make you happy?

Studies have shown that happy people tend to earn higher salaries, and it stands to reason that these high earners are content – at least in part – because they have jobs they love.

Reasons to do what you love

Enjoying your career should be a priority over earning a high salary or flashy title, but that may not have been the case when you first considered what you wanted to do for a career. Here are four reasons to quit the job you’re unhappy with, along with four questions that can help you determine your next steps to finding a career you love.

1. You’ll feel more fulfilled.

Your job shouldn’t just be a source of income. If you don’t enjoy what you do, you’ll end up missing out on your life.

“As the lines between working life and personal life blur, a job is as much about personal fulfillment and growth as it is about a paycheck,” said Philip Ryan, managing partner at Ipsos Strategy3. “People don’t want to make widgets; they want to change

The skills you gain through studying English are marketable in most job sectors. Read on for inspiration on where you could use your degree

Job options

Jobs directly related to your degree include:

Jobs where your degree would be useful include:

Remember that many employers accept applications from graduates with any degree subject, so don't restrict your thinking to the jobs listed here.

Take a few minutes to answer the Job Match quiz and find out what careers would suit you

Try Job Match

Work experience

As English is a non-vocational degree, it's important to include skills developed outside of your course on your CV.

At university, for example, many English students write for student newspapers and magazines, get involved with student radio or film societies, or volunteer in the community or local schools. Evidence of any skills gained from work experience and extra-curricular activities, as well as through study, can help boost your job prospects.

If you have a particular career in mind, apply for relevant work placements and summer internships to get some practical experience and build up a network of contacts. This experience will also help you decide whether

There are no right or wrong answers when doing a skills assessment. It’s a way to understand yourself better and help you think about your next step.

You could seize a skills assessment to aid you:

find out what motivates you
work out careers that do not interest you
see what you can do with the skills you have

Discover your skills and careers assessment

Answer questions about things you like to do or are good at. You’ll see what motivates you based on your answers and get career ideas to compare.

This assessment:

contains 40 multiple-choice questions
takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete – it may take longer with a screen reader
gives you a reference code so you can come support later

You might want to speak about your results with a careers adviser as they will know about local opportunities.

July 2023

If you collected lists of techniques for doing great work in a lot of different fields, what would the intersection look like? I decided to find out by making it.

Partly my goal was to create a guide that could be used by someone working in any field. But I was also curious about the shape of the intersection. And one thing this exercise shows is that it does have a definite shape; it's not just a point labelled "work hard."

The following recipe assumes you're very ambitious.

The first step is to decide what to work on. The work you choose needs to have three qualities: it has to be something you have a natural aptitude for, that you have a deep interest in, and that offers scope to do great work.

In practice you don't have to worry much about the third criterion. Ambitious people are if anything already too conservative about it. So all you need to do is find something you have an aptitude for and great interest in. [1]

That sounds straightforward, but it's often quite difficult. When you're young you don't know what you're good at or what different kinds of work are like. Some kinds of work you end up doing may not even exist yet. So while some