Getting your child career smart—almost no-one does—but you can start now

These days there are more types of occupations than ever before, and this makes career choice more difficult for young people. When Australia was settled 200 years ago there were very few jobs that could be done, and most young people would have had fairly direct or at least indirect experience of most of them. Many would follow the situation of their parents. Now this has all changed, and students are now more confused than ever. Often they investigate what type of university course their ATAR can buy, and what subjects they liked at school, or did well in. Disappointingly, some young people who don’t get the ATAR they need for one occupational area, just switch to another.

Your children must learn who they are

The career choice process actually begins during infants and primary school. The reason for this is very simple. Career choice is not about choosing a career, it’s about knowing who you are. Once self identity is established then the career will choose itself, at least to some extent. During a student’s young years by and large they are themselves and this is who they really are, not the image which high school students like to present. Nearly always there is one person in the lives of young students who has witnessed their young behaviour, and probably understands them better than they do—and that person is their mother. So, this is the starting point, what children were like when they were young. Were they good at having lots of friends, or did they like staying by themselves. Were they a good at art, or music, or at building things. Sometimes relatives can also be a source of information about these early years.

Actually family history is important too. Hundreds of years ago young people nearly always followed, if they were boys, their father’s footsteps. This wasn’t just a matter of helping their father, or knowing more about this occupational area. Probably the young person had inherited some of the talents necessary to be successful in this area. The same principle should be applied today, that is young people should examine the careers of their grandparents, and great grandparents, on both sides of the family. If there are any discernible trends then that occupational area could be on the short list.

During the early years of high school, particularly, young people must experience as many different things as possible. Horse riding, sailing, bushwalking, camping, different types of work experience, casual jobs—the list is endless. It is very important that the young student does not sit in his or her bedroom playing on the Internet for hours and hours. Perhaps that might develop skill for the job of air traffic controller, but in general young people need to be out and about and interacting with the real world. When parents provide and assist with a diversity of experiences young people have more chance of finding out what they like, and what they’re good at. In the same way different subjects need to be tried at school, and this information also needs to be fed into the career short list.

Getting career information

As the children get older, and certainly from Year 10 on they should be attending career exhibitions. Sometimes schools organise children and take them to these exhibitions as a school excursion. But whatever happens students need to go, and they need to go more than once. It is not just a matter of collecting brochures and hoping for free food and free pens. Students need to attend the seminars provided, and ask questions. In this way something of the reality of the vocational world can be experienced. Boys, particularly, need encouragement to attend these exhibitions.

Some private schools provide Year 10 or Year 11 students with psychological testing to try to identify their interests and aptitudes. Students receive comprehensive written reports. This approach can be useful because it provides information from a different perspective, and all information is helpful, because what the student is looking for are common trends. Parents can privately arrange this type of testing but it will be expensive. As a substitute there are available written interest inventories which the student can work through, ticking boxes. In general I have found these to be less useful.

Another way of assisting vocational choice is to see all occupational areas within a set of overlapping groups. Sometimes high schools organise subject choices in this manner to assist Year 10 students making subject choices for Year 11. If students are interested in building or engineering then this would involve university degrees in, for example, civil engineering, architecture, building management, or even environmental planning. On the other hand degrees in economics and finance, accounting, business studies or human resource management are associated with administration and business. Design, a popular area with girls, can lead to qualifications at TAFE, and degrees at university such as multimedia and interior design etc.

This type of approach needs to be organised by the schools careers adviser. The benefit is for students to understand that if they think they are interested in a particular area then this would lead necessarily to certain types of courses and qualifications. Details on these courses can then be accessed by the students to discover what types of things they would be doing and studying, and whether this might be appealing. The whole purpose here is to sharpen career thinking.

Actually school careers advisers can be of enormous benefit to students and probably schools need to better resource these staff positions. Students do need guidance and assistance in accessing the type of information that helps make decisions. Students might be good at downloading things, and sending social media messages, but when it comes to accessing real information their digital expertise is lacking, as is of course their real world experience. Careers advisers can, for example, help to arrange suitable work experience for students.

Students do then need to have a lot of help in making vocational choices. The beginning is to understand what type of person they are, and the values and attitudes and needs they have. If for example making money is the only thing of interest then certain careers would have to be ruled out. The important thing is to make the best decision possible at this stage based on consideration of many types of information gathered from many sources.

What if the wrong choice is made?

If a university or TAFE course is started and the student realises that a mistake has been made then they should simply withdraw from the course. If withdrawal is made early then the student will not have to pay fees to the commonwealth government. But if the withdrawal is made beyond that point there will be a financial and time penalty, but this is much better than pursuing an area in which there is not likely to be success.

Young people take time grow up and be able to make decisions which turn out to be the correct ones. Parents and relatives therefore have to be patient and supportive. Even so the danger to be guarded against is the tendency of students to make no attempt to even think about career planning. Some students feel that the need to choose a career area will never actually happen. If by chance it does happen then mum will solve it—as usual. Good luck everyone.