HOW TO WRITE YOUR STORY

Keen to share your story, but not sure where to start?

We though a helpful page like this might come in handy for those of you with writer’s block ☺

Firstly, we aren’t expecting you to be a published author…. We just want you to be able to write a few brief points about your life at work, where it all started, what happened in the middle bit, and where it all ended.

We’ve included some useful notes below to help you on your way.

What are we looking for?

We are looking for your career story. We have no pre-defined idea about how long it needs to be, how many words, paragraphs, pages. We want you to explain your career in a way which helps your readers understand how your journey started, the steps you took to move on from your humble beginnings, to how you eventually landed at your happy place.

THE BEGINNING

To start you off, why not try explaining what you really wanted to be? Most of us had an idea during school, college or university where we wanted our career to take us. We might start down the path we chose by studying for those qualifications relevant to our aspirations at the time, or move into a job or apprenticeship as the first rung on that ladder.

Tell us about this early part of your career, what direction did you want to head in? And why?

THE MIDDLE

Once you’d started down your chosen path, what happened next? Did you realise you’d made the right choice, or did you decide you’d rather do something totally different? Either is great!

Tell us about the steps you took on your way to career happiness:

What were your thoughts about your original chosen career path?
What other jobs did you apply for, and why?
What jobs did you get? And how did they help you on your way to where you eventually ended up?
Were your decisions to move jobs influenced by any of your experiences in your early career?
Were your choices in this middle bit influenced by anyone else? If so, who were they?

And THE END

Now that you reached a place you are happy with, tell us all about it!

You might include things like:

How did you eventually end up in your happy place? Was it a total fluke, or did you get there through sheer determination and hard work?

What was it about your early career which took you in this direction?

What do you love about the work you do?

What levels of personal satisfaction do you get from your career now?

If you’re in a helpful mood, you could also give your readers some handy tips on how they could get to where you are now. How they might deal with any of the hurdles you encountered, and what to look out for to help them on their way…

See…. It’s simple really!

And if that’s not enough, here are some brief tips to help you when you’re writing!

TIP ONE

Any worries about your story being inspiring enough, or not at all, are just not founded. Your career story is important to us and our readers; it helps them form a picture of what you achieved, which in turn will help them appreciate the direction different careers can take.

TIP TWO

Don’t worry about how long your story is – your readers will take as much inspiration from the career history you’ve listed as your story. 100 words, 1000 words or 10,000 words – every word is useful, so don’t try to pad your story out just because you don’t think it’s long enough.

TIP THREE

Try and write as you speak – we don’t need big words, acronyms, jargon, just plain old English.

TIP FOUR

Please don’t use any profanities (swear words) as we’ll have to edit them out before your story is published