Planning
Scheduling workflow, planning resources, managing your own time, multi-tasking, and meeting objectives.
While there are many lists of these ’employability’ skills, at Oxford we focus on the key eight skills – based on the Confederation of British Industry (CBI)’s report, Future Fit.
This page focuses on Planning. To read more about the other seven employability skills, click on the links below.
These ideas are ways to start planning effectively. You might use these as evidence of planning skills in a written application if you haven’t been involved in larger projects. Either way, you’re likely to be asked about how you organise yourself at interview, so these are useful things to do!
- Set time aside to plan when starting a major activity.
- Make revision timetables.
- Make monthly and annual budgets, and stick to them!
- Research different methods of planning – including the different tools available, and consider which suits you best. For example…
- Use a diary or calendar.
- Keep a “to-do list”.
- Control your emails.
- Download and use notification apps on your phone.
These are all easy ways you can develop your planning skills, and can refer to in applications.
- Plan an expedition, travel, or volunteer abroad.
- Organise an away-day for a society, or an inter-university match for a sports club.
- Co-organise the support for admissions interviews in your college.
- Organise an away day for sports club etc.
- Arrange your own travel itinerary on vacation – such as inter-railing.
- Craft solutions to contingencies you might encounter (eg. finding resources for college events, securing bridging money between research contracts).
- Get involved with any extra-curricular activities while at Oxford – from membership of societies to part-time work. The ability to simultaneously juggle multiple activities and get a good grade is really effective evidence of an ability to plan.
- Define responsibilities early when starting a collaborative task.
- Volunteer to organise your Common Room’s annual elections.
- Coordinate aspects of the Freshers Fair or other OUSU events.
- Plan fieldwork or a research project.
- Get involved with community projects.
- Organise speaker series for society.
- Organise a campaign, ball, conference, or other large event.
- Become the editor of a student publication, such as a newspaper, website or yearbook.
Click on the 'CareerConnect EVENTS' tab below to see upcoming events from the Careers Service where you can build on this skill.
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Check the CareerConnect platform for all our upcoming events and opportunities, book appointments, find jobs and internships, and more.
