Different students, different career stages

As one of our flexible and distance learning students here at LSHTM, you are part of an incredible diverse group of learners.

Not only are many of our students based in many countries across the world, studying a diverse range of programmes, many of our students also have very different levels of experience in the workplace and career aspirations.

Some have relatively little work experience, other have growing amounts of work experience, whilst others have substantial amounts of work experience.

We call these three groups: 

  • Career Starters
  • Career Developers
  • Career Changers

These three groups have distinct types of careers and employability needs and often have different motivations for studying with us.

We design our careers and employability resources and support to meet those three different cohorts.

This means we can best support you whether you are at the start of your career journey, whether you’re looking to strengthen on your career trajectory or whether you looking to make a career change or adjustment.

Which career stage feels most similar to your situation? 

Here’s a bit more information to help you identify which career stage feels most like your situation:

 

Are you a Career Starter?

A career starter is someone who currently has limited work experience.  They may be studying an undergraduate degree and have not had the opportunity to gain much experience within the workplace.  They may also be a postgraduate student who hasn’t had much employment experience yet.  They may, or may not, have clear ideas of the career direction which they want to go in. Either way, they are keen to gain more work experience to develop their career going forward and are using their qualification as a means to access different sectors or industries. In terms of careers and employability support, they may be particularly keen to learn more about work-based learning opportunities and how to navigate the application processes for graduate recruiters.

You may be at the start of your career journey but it can help to take a moment to reflect on your career decision making.

Good career decision making has three key stages: gathering information about yourself and your options, evaluating the facts and your priorities and then testing your decision before taking action.

Know your own career values

Looking forward, a sustained, successful and rewarding career involves a good fit between your personal career values and the features of your chosen jobs and professional sectors. That good fit varies from person to person. It is worth taking some time to explore your own careers values so that your career planning and decision making is tailored to the authentic you. Some career values are easy to quantify such as a certain level of income, other values are much more subjective such as creativity.

You may have a clearer idea of your career values by getting involved in a range of work-based learning, such as internships or placements. Your wider social and community life might also inform your career values.

Discover the values of organisations and employers

Just as you have a personal value culture, so do professions and employers. These value cultures are developed from the purposes, practices and conventions of the work. You may have already encountered examples of professional values through your study. If you have some work experience, either paid or unpaid, within a particular industry you may also have a greater understanding of the organisational values firms within that sector.

Large organisations made up of many professionals, also have values and cultures which you may find more or less compatible. It is worth learning to observe a job culture and evaluate how well it fits your own values and priorities. The first place to start that observation is to study how the organisation describes itself on its website where you will often find their mission and vision statements.

But it’s also very important to go beyond the company website. It is also very valuable to ask people already working in a sector to describe the culture of their profession or organisation which can help you evaluate whether it is a good fit for you.  By making sure you engage in the key stages of Research/Reflect/Test/Evaluate you are more likely to make informed and sustainable career decisions.

By getting engaged with this type of reflection, you preparing yourself to be a career starter who embarks on a successful career journey.

Useful additional links for Career Starters

Are you a Career Starter, looking to obtain your first role in public health or related fields? If so these resources might help:

Are you a Career Developer?

A career developer is someone who already has some years of experience within a particular industry or sector.  They may be studying an undergraduate degree as a way to consolidate their existing levels of work experience. They may be a postgraduate student who is using their studies to illustrate their expertise and specialist knowledge within a particular area.  They may well be aiming for more senior roles within their organisation or sector and using their qualification to position themselves for a promotion.  In terms of careers and employability support, they may be eager to understand how best to articulate their skill development and relevant achievements appropriately on their CV and to keep up to date with developments in their preferred sectors.

As a Career Developer, you may be ready to step up from being 'one of the team' to being the 'leader of the team'.

But until you get the opportunity to take on a leadership role at work, how can you demonstrate you can add value to the working of a team and be a highly valued member of the group?

How to add value to a team

One way to quickly increase your value to any team is to take some time to identify at which stage of development the team is operating. As you observe team behaviour, you can pick your moment to ask timely questions. This can help you clarify how best to contribute to the improvement of the team processes and dynamics. Whatever the team, you will often observe common stages as a team starts its work, deals with challenges, personalities and setbacks, and starts to make significant contribution to the work of the organisation. 

One of the most cited resources is the model developed by Bruce Tuckman in 1965, describing common team stages as Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. Since Tuckman did his research in the 1960s and 1970s, work has become much more fluid and Tuckman added the stage Mourning to reflect the increasingly short life cycle of project teams. For a Dutch perspective on Tuckman's team see this resource from the Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation in the Netherlands.

Useful Questions to ask yourself

It’s worth paying attention to the different stages of any team you are in and asking yourself the following questions so that you can help the team achieve, particularly as you look to take on a more senior role in your future career development.

At the start of team set up or when you are joining a team as a new member

  • What are we supposed to be achieving?
  • How will we know that we have achieved this?
  • How is the work divided?
  • What is my role?
  • What quick wins can we achieve to build confidence and credibility?

When there is conflict and confusion in the team

  • Where do we need better data?
  • Where do we need better processes?
  • Where do we need clearer guidance from management?
  • What conversations need to happen between team members?
  • How do we refocus on the goal?

When the team is performing well

  • How can we sustain this level of performance?
  • How can we build on this level of performance?
  • How can we have some fun together?
  • How can we get internal/external recognition for this excellent team performance?
  • What is our next challenge?

By asking these sorts of questions you'll be demonstrating to yourself, your managers and future recruiters that you are a career developer who has the necessary qualities and confidence to lead teams in the future.

Useful additional links for Career Developers

Are you a Career Developer, looking for your next promotion or specialisation in the same sector? If so these resources might help:

Are you a Career Changer?

A career changer is someone who already has several years of experience within a particular industry or sector and is now looking to shift their career direction towards a similar or different field. They may be studying an undergraduate degree to deepen their understanding of a particular industry. They may be a postgraduate student who is using their qualification to demonstrate a pivot towards a different career direction.  They may be looking for roles within organisations which acknowledge their prior experience or they may be hoping to set up their own business or consultancy services. In terms of careers and employability support, they may be highly value strategies to wider their professional network in a new direction and learn how to articulate their career shift in a convincing way during an interview.

As an experienced professional thinking about making a career change, you may feel you already know enough about your chosen new direction. But are you absolutely sure?

Reality-test your career ideas

It's important to evaluate and reality-test your ideas about your new career direction to make sure the change you make is going to be both enjoyable and sustainable.

One of the best ways to evaluate and reality-test whether the career options that you are evaluating are right for you is to have conversations with professionals knowledgeable about the professional sectors that you are considering. These professionals may be people you know through your current work or through your wider network.

Such conversations can give you practice in describing your rationale for your chosen career change, reflect on the pros and cons and help you develop your plan for developing the right competencies, experiences and contacts that will help you achieve your career change ambitions.

Explore career change conversations

Useful career change conversations can take place in a number of ways:

  • Informal networking with family or friends. If you know anyone socially who works in your preferred professional sector, take the opportunity to ask them about what works in that sector is really like day-to-day, how they think the work will change in the future and what qualities are needed to succeed.
  • Contacts that you meet through events at professional associations or your wider professional life. You might get the opportunity to ask questions at speaker events or over networking drinks.  Be prepared with questions such as "What do you look for when you are recruiting an experienced hire?" and "How is has this field changed over recent years?" Their answers may give you invaluable insights into what it is really like to work in that sector.
  • Recruitment and careers professionals can be a useful sounding board for your career thinking. Check out what is available in your local context, government and teaching centres may be able to direct you to free and relevant services, such as individual career coaching or group workshops.

By getting engaged with this type of reflection, you are ensuring that any changes you make to your career direction will be productive and sustainable.

Useful additional links for Career Changers

Are you a Career Changer, looking to pivot career direction into public and global health (or something similar), or from a clinical to a non-clinical role? Career Changers may find these videos helpful:

Last modified: Monday, 13 April 2026, 12:03 PM