The document provides guidance for criminology students on writing a career plan in 3 sections: 1) reflection on current skills and experience, 2) goals for the short and long-term, and 3) steps to achieve goals. It emphasizes using external sources to inform discussions and having a reasonable bibliography. Sources could include university descriptions, careers websites, and academic literature on careers, organizations, and political/economic issues. The plan should match current skills to requirements and identify skills to develop if needed.

1. Criminology in the Professions
Career plan for life after criminology:
This should be in three sections of around 500 words each, although it is acceptable
for the word limits on these sections to be slightly different, as long as the total limit
does not exceed 1500 words. The sections include an informed personal reflection
entitled:
• 'Where am I now?’
• 'Where do I want to be?’ (In the short and long term if applicable).
• 'How will I get there’?
1500 words.
Important note:
This is a proper ‘informed’ piece of academic work and means that you must use
external sources to inform your discussions. Tutors expect to see a reasonable
bibliography that specifically relates to your work; otherwise you will be in
danger of failing this assignment. It is acceptable that many of the sources are
likely to be from the internet, but you do need to make sure that you believe
them to be valid.
If, for instance you want to be a teacher, then you should look at sources like the
graduate teaching sites as well as government policy on Education, so that you know
what you are letting yourself in for both financially, socially and politically. For
teaching you also need to find out what sort of course you can do from your degree as
this can be limited and you would need to identify what the courses are looking for in
terms of skills, competences and experience, so that you would be successful in your
application.
For all of you it is also important to look at what careers sites such as our own or the
prospects website say about work or courses that you are interested in. It might be in
the short term that professions are simply not recruiting at the moment, so you may
need to think about planning in the short and long term, to get where you want.
Theoretical underpinnings are also important, with the best plans reflecting on things
like career anchors, managerialism, organisational culture, as well as the political
context of any profession. These things are all very relevant, because all careers,
courses, training and other potential plans are directly affected by the socio-economic
and political context of the country. Knowing this means that you can be realistic
about how to achieve what you want, and what you are going to have to do to realise
your ambitions.
If you haven’t got a clue what to do, or want to travel, volunteer or even start your
own business, it is just as important to plan your future. So called ‘gap years’ are best
when they have been planned effectively and there are lots of organisations offering
help with this type of experience, but you need to be careful about which are genuine
and offer you good (safe) placements, advice and support etc. Not knowing what to
do is very common, in fact around a quarter of last years students, didn’t know what

2. Criminology in the Professions
they wanted to do. It helps however if you know where you can get information or
help from, or what sort of things are actually out there. Even coming to some
conclusions about what you don’t want to do is a valuable lesson learnt!
Post graduate study is a good option for some people, but you will need to identify
both what courses you might be interested in and how you might finance this. Some
courses expect you to have particular competences or grades, and most will have
deadlines for applications.
Even if you just want to go and do ‘any job’ to get some money together whilst you
think about the future, planning this can make the difference between obtaining work
or not given the current political circumstances. You will often find that the ‘any job’
type of job has management potential for those who want it, but it’s about knowing
what is available on any particular organisation.
So…
• 'Where am I now' could include a reflection on your current skills base,
including analysing the skills and competences that you are gaining from your
degree, other education experiences of note as well as work experience,
volunteering, and other skills/interests etc. Useful sources could be module
and degree descriptors from the university sites, internet sites or other
discourses for any organisation that you have worked or volunteered for; the
careers@lincoln site; sports and recreation sites etc.
• The 'where do I want to be' could look at jobs, post grad education,
volunteering, travelling, starting a business, training, or even, where can 'I' get
inspiration/information about what might be available if you haven’t a clue.
Use could be made of reflective techniques such as ‘career anchors’ or a
DOTS analysis which might help you come to some conclusions about what
you are interested in doing. You should make a career planning interview with
our careers professionals and get them to help you do this, and you might want
to look at both long and short term plans. The main issue here is to look at
what there is out there, think about what might appeal to you and what these
opportunities require in terms of competences. Useful sources would include
websites from specific organisations, professions and educational institutes;
academic sources on specific organisations, or services eg Police, Prisons,
education, public sector; academic sources on theoretical, socio-economic and
political issues such as organisational cultures, managerialism, performance
indicators; conservativism, neo-liberalism, government policy etc; career
planning tools such as ‘career anchors’ etc.
• The 'How do I get there' is about matching the skills that you have identified
to the plans that you are developing. In this section you will be expected to
both identify what competences and experiences you have that the
organisations you are interested in require, and if you don't have the required
skills and competences, how are going to develop these. Useful sources again
would be a mix of those stated in the first two sections.