When should my child begin career planning? I had this question posed to me a few weeks ago and I was so excited because I love answering questions! So, if you have a burning question, message me or email me. I’ll answer it for free! Chances are if you have the question, other people do as well.
Simply put, it is never too early to begin career planning. In fact, when I worked for a community college, my colleague organized an entire career exploration day for 3rd graders (yes, you read that correctly)! In my opinion, which is based on 10 years of working with students from middle school to adult students in college and university, a student should *ideally* begin the career planning process as a high school freshman or sophomore. Before I continue, I want to say that it is never too late to begin career planning! If you have a high school senior or college freshman that hasn’t engaged in this process yet, that is OK. The best time to start is right now.
If I could get a student as a high school freshman or sophomore, here is the journey I would take him/her on with regards to career planning:
High School Freshman/Sophomore
Goal: raise self-awareness.
The first step in career planning is self-awareness. And this could easily be a focus for one’s freshman year and should continue to spill over into later years of high school as well. This is best accomplished by using everyday life occurrences as opportunities to have small conversations that add up over time to big results. There are so many free resources available online for raising a student’s self-awareness both in general and as it relates to career planning. I’ve listed three of my favorites in my blog post, “Career Planning: 3 Tips for Working with College Students.”
High School Sophomore
Goal: Explore careers of interest (start small).
If you’ve been having career conversations with your child, you probably got a bit of grumbling or just adamant “NOs” when you try to get your child to get out there and do some career exploration. If your student is reluctant, start small. We have a tendency to want to jump right into a job shadow or an internship. Start small, start easy, start with something more comfortable. A 15-minute conversation over coffee or, perhaps even more ‘safe’ for the student, is inviting someone in a career of interest over to your house (on the student’s turf so-to-speak) for dinner, to watch a football game, etc. Whatever is going to make your student most comfortable, do that. Informational interviews (of the informal or formal kind) are a low time commitment for all parties and can give students great perspective. Not sure what questions to ask? Kat Boogaard wrote a great article for The Muse called, “7 Questions You Can’t Leave an Informational Interview without Asking.”
High School Junior
Goal: Experience career fields for the first-hand perspective.
Hopefully, through early career exploration as a sophomore, your student will have narrowed down his/her top career choices to 2-3 that are of the most interest. This is where we start taking the exploration piece a little more seriously and move into getting her/her first-hand perspective. Informational interviews and informal conversations discussed above are a great low-commitment perspective builder for students. Once a career option has passed that screening test and raises the level of excitement a student has for a career field, I suggest getting him/her first-hand perspective. This could include a tour at an organization or a job shadow. Again, the time commitment doesn’t have to be big at this point to provide the student with the perspective needed to make informed career planning decisions. I suggest your student follow up with people who were kind enough to give of their time for informational interviews and ask for a follow-up tour or job shadow.
High School Senior
Goal: Choose a career field, gain paid or unpaid experience, and determine a training/education route.
You may have noticed I used the phrases “career field” here and “unpaid experience.” Best case scenario would be that a student has articulated the exact career path he/she wants to pursue and gains paid experience; however, what I have written is probably more realistic for the average student AND it takes the pressure off of the student and the organization who is hosting him/her for said experience. As a student is gaining some additional perspective on the career field (hopefully in the summer prior to or in the first semester of his/her senior year), begin looking at ways successful people in that field have prepared themselves through education and training.
Notice career planning came BEFORE or at the same time as college planning! This is SO IMPORTANT! We have a tendency to choose a college first and then a major and worry about how that translates to a career later. I wrote a blog post about this last week, the opposite should be true! We want students to choose a career first, then a major or training program that is going to best prepare him/her and choose the best college or technical school depending on the programs and majors that are available.
Finally, I must reiterate that this would be the IDEAL process. Life can get in the way. Sometimes it is hard to get student buy-in, students start school and then change majors, etc. If you have a student who has already graduated and might be “behind,” it is ok! I recently engaged in this very process with several college students. What I find is older students have a greater level of self-awareness and we end up spending more time on exploration and planning phases. It is never too early to begin career planning, but it is never too late either!
How can I help?
As an experienced educator and career coach, I sit down with students and young professionals one-on-one and assist them as they articulate their goals and develop a plan to achieve them! The path to success is not straightforward. My mission is to help you experience true career fulfillment through proactive coaching and career planning.