The health and safety field is highly fruitful for those willing to pursue it. However, it can be slightly difficult to get ahead at first. You have to build your way to where you’re wanting to go, and that can be a very confusing process.
To help guide you down the path to building your career in health and safety, we’ve created this simplified list of steps you need to take to get the most out of your efforts.
Let’s get started.
1: Determine Your Exact Position
There are top-tier health and safety positions in a wide variety of industries. You can work in the traditional health field, in an ecologically-focused position, or even in industrial fields. It’s not a career that you want to go into with a general idea of what you want to do. You need to be specific. Take time, look up the various areas this career can fall into, and really determine what is right for you before you even start the process.
2: Educational Qualifications
One thing that is consistent across all health and safety careers is the need for specific educational qualifications. Without those, you’ll find that your application ends up in the trash bin 100% of the time.
Once you’ve determined exactly what you want to do, research which qualifications are necessary and make the steps to achieve them.
3: Pre-Career Experience
Even after a few years of high-quality education, you’ll find that the majority of employers don’t want you. They certainly don’t want you to helm their health and safety needs fresh out of school. They demand experience.
For this, you’ll likely need to start in lower-level positions that build the skill sets necessary for your end goal in the field, or you might need to take a hands-on internship.
These can be difficult to come by. So, check a health and safety jobs board to make the search a lot easier.
4: Know When to Apply
Now, you’re just about ready to actually get into your career. After you’ve got a year or two of experience, it’s much more reasonable for you to start applying to companies for the position you want or something that will get you closer to the top positions.
However, you need to recognize when it’s time to do that.
Stay in those starter positions for too long, and you’ll be wasting your education on lower-paying positions. Don’t stay long enough, and you won’t have an impressive resume. See how much experience employers want, and once you have that, make the next step.
5: Focus on Success
Okay, you’ve gotten into the field. It’s game over, right? No. You will likely start off lower on the totem pole than you really want to be; even after all that hard work.
Once you get your foot in the door, it’s time to start focusing on finding success in health and safety.
By following the link above, you’ll enter a new path of steps just like these, but you’re at least at the halfway mark and finally in the career you want. Keep pushing, and you’ll eventually reach the top of that field.