Exploration Precedes Planning
Career planning begins with career exploration. The initiative to explore various careers must initiate from parents enabling students to widen their horizons and not be limited the parents knowledge.?
For the Parents: During the career exploration do not enforce your ideas on teens on what you deem right or wrong, let them come up with a summary on their own, it could be an interesting summer project and you can even involve a few of your children’s like-minded friends in this project.
For the Students: Do not disregard or undermine your parents’ experience. Although you may not agree completely with what they have to say for a particular career, keep an open mind during the discussions and discuss objectively.
Motivation and Inspiration
What inspires you to have a satisfying career and life? What organizations would you love to volunteer with or work as an intern during your summer break? Why? It is time to analyze your motivation toward a particular career.
For the Parents: Question your children on what or who inspires them. Ask them to reason with them and discuss the pros and cons. Do not be judgmental; just take time to analyze their likings and role models. This is also a time where you can find out if there are any pointers to entrepreneurship in your child. More on entrepreneurial traits in children is coming soon on these columns. Subscribe to the blog to get fresh content.
For the Students: Prepare a list of careers that inspire you, in this list also mention what you particularly like about the career. My daughter who is first grade wants to be a TV newscaster – of course very early for her to plan on any career and of course the “best career” changes every few months but this one has been on the radar for quite some time. Why? Mainly because it closely links to who she is – a presenter who loves to talk, someone who loves attention and wants to look good on the screen! What inspires you and why?
A clear and in-depth analysis of your inspiration and motivation will help you in identifying your “key” skills. It will help you immensely in future.
Research Resources
Resources abound in this information age. Research and gather information on how to choose a career. Read about the different occupations – what skills they require and what does a job description look like? You may look up such information at the US DOL website (or any similar websites pertaining to your country of residence). For a range of careers the DOL Occupational Outlook Handbook informs you on:
- the training and education needed
- earnings
- expected job prospects
- what workers do on the job
- working conditions
In addition, the Handbook gives you job search tips, links to information about the job market in each State, and more.
Also Career books are a great source of knowledge; check out some resources on this website.
Honing Career Essential Skills
Skill identification is one of the most crucial step in finding the right career of your choice or being in your dream job. Both parents and students must actively participate in this process; you may even take help of a career counselor or coach to guide you through this process. There are various career tools and self assessment tests which help in skill set identification, if parents have never taken such tests it can be an eye-opener for them as well.
Experience the Career
It is perhaps still early for your child to experience the career but parents can be of assistance in experiencing the career of their choice. Job shadowing or informational interviews can be very helpful in this process. More on this topic is coming up on the planacareer.com columns.