Being your own boss is something lots of people dream about doing. Being able to pick your work hours and set your own pricing structure are some of the many benefits that attract people to set up their own business.

Although there are many perks there are also some obstacles that you may have to get over and at times the stress and responsibility can take its toll. It may be risky if you are having to buy stock using your savings or obtain credit from suppliers meaning that if everything goes wrong, you will lose a lot of money. You really need to do your research to establish if there is a gap in the market for the products or services that you are going to be offering and check that you can compete. You need to work out the prices that you need to charge to be able to compete with other businesses whilst still making a profit. Larger companies will often be able to buy in bulk and usual receive a hefty discount.

Keeping your accounts up to date is vital when running a business as it will help when it comes to yearend tax returns but also to ensure that your business is profitable.

There are a number of different roles within IT that can make it a very rewarding job. One role that you may consider is a consultant. But what is an IT consultant and what are your main job tasks.

The job of an IT consultant can be very challenging. You will often be going in to businesses and looking at the way the business is ran and how you can improve it focusing on the IT they use. This may be within the finance area, marketing area, management or a combination of many different departments and often involves looking in to how IT can help improve process that happen within the business. So many businesses use a lot of IT in their business, especially over the last 18 months where they may have only been able to trade online due to lockdowns.

As a consultant it is important that you know about your client and their industry. You need to keep your ear to the ground and be proactive with any IT products that you recommend. You should take the time to get to fully understand the business that you are working with and what is available to them in their industry. Knowing the history of the business and their current IT software and uses is vital.

With many students looking like they may finish their school year early this year, there is already a number of people looking for work. The main issue that school leavers are going to face is that there is likely to be a lot more competition for jobs as lots of people have found themselves out for work due to the lockdown situation.
As an employer, when you look to recruit a new member of staff you will need to think carefully about what skills and experience they need to have if any. If the job requires little skill and experience then you may decide to employ a school leaver.
Some employers are reluctant to employ school leavers, thinking that they may be unreliable and require too much time and resources to train them up as they are not used to the work environment, but this is often far from the case. Many young people who leave school to work want to find themselves a career and are often willing to go above and beyond to prove themselves. You can also then train them up in the way that you want them to work rather than have to try and retain someone that is sued to working a different way for another company.

Are you fed up in your current job? Maybe you have been in the same position for years and fancy a change or maybe you have tried something new and realised its not for you, there are so many job options out there it seems silly to stay doing something that you don’t enjoy.

If you have decided that you fancy a new challenge next year then why not consider teaching. Although no one can tell you teaching is an easy job or extremely well paid, but it is very rewarding and there are some perks. If you have children that are of school age then you may find that it is nice to know that during the school holidays you will be able to spend time with them as you will most likely have time off too.

You will need to have obtained a teaching degree at university to allow you to teach but if you have done any degree you can then add a PGCE course on to the end which takes about 12 months to complete and then allows you to teach.

If you want to teach in a secondary school then you will need to have a degree in the subject or very close to the subject you wish to teach.

Primary school teaching requires a less in-depth but more general knowledge across multiple subjects as you will be teaching a range of lessons based on English, Maths, Science, RE and PE for example.

There are several ways in which you can start searching for a job that may be suited to your skill set, qualifications and commitment.

You may decide to go to the job centre and either speak to an advisor or many now have online computer systems you can use to find jobs that match your skill / experience level. This can be particularly handy if you are not exactly sure as to what you want to do or the opportunities open to you.

The other place you may want to look is on online jobs boards. There are quick and easy to use and allow you to search through hundreds of jobs at a time. You can usually filter the jobs that come up by job type, location or salary and some allow you to refine this more by selecting qualifications you have.

A CV is a very important tool when applying for jobs. This document can mean the difference between asked in for an interview and turned away at the first stage. It is vital that your CV is up to date with all of your education / qualifications as well as any working experience you may have. If you have an up to date CV to hand you can quickly apply for jobs even if the deadline for applications is closing soon. You should always tweak your cover letter for each company that you are sending the CV to as the covering letter should be quite specific to the job you are applying for whereas your CV is likely to be more generic.