Series: Navigating the transition from high school to the real world: Part Two
Parents as career exploration partners
Parents as career exploration partners
As parents and carers, among our many responsibilities is guiding our children toward fulfilling and successful futures. In Australia, the opportunities are endless, but navigating the myriad of pathways can be overwhelming.
With the world in a constant state of flux and economies and industries rapidly adapting to change, parents and carers are warranted in their confusion if uncertainty has them questioning what advice to give their child. So, what advice and support can they provide that will have long term significance and relevance?
As automation removes the emphasis from routine manual tasks and thinking, young people will be called to critically analyze information to choose from a range of solutions and be able to adapt and lead change throughout their careers. Some young people have very clear ideas about what they like and what they want to do, but many don’t and that is okay.
Rather than asking ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ and focusing on the technical requirements of a job, encourage your child to focus on how they like to work and help them to identify a broad industry of interest first.
Over the last 20 years, career advice in Australia has evolved significantly to adapt to changes in the economy, labour market trends, technology, and societal expectations. Some key changes include:
1. Portfolio careers are in, linear careers are out.
The typical career journey once entailed choosing a profession, acquiring foundational knowledge, and slowly becoming an expert throughout our working lives. There has been a shift away from linear career paths, where length of tenure determined seniority and opportunity. For young people today, their career paths are less predictable. It is expected that young Australians today will have around 17 different jobs across their working life and around 5 different careers during their lifetime. This translates to an average tenure of 3.3 years per job requiring them to be highly adaptable and responsive to change and apply skills across multiple contexts. Success will be directly linked to the level of adaptability and capacity to learn new skills and create opportunity.
2. Lifelong learning:
Career advice now emphasizes continuous learning, skill development, adaptability, and resilience to ensure individuals are appropriately skilled to keep up with innovation and the evolving needs of business and industry. This is reflected in the tertiary education sector, where once lengthy structured degree pathways are being replaced with greater flexibility, recognition of prior learning, more entry pathways and the rise in online learning and micro-credentials. In the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector, industry training packages are regularly reviewed to ensure they reflect industry standards with a growing number of Skills Sets being made available to make it easier for individuals to upskill, remain current and change careers. Young people who work out what their learning ‘hacks’ are early on, will find it easier to proactively upskill, maximising their competitiveness for new work opportunities.
3. Young people don’t have to be job seekers, they can be job creators!:
There are a diverse range of career pathways and opportunities available to individuals. However, there is growing support for greater recognition of non-traditional career paths including entrepreneurship, freelancing, gig work and portfolio careers. Advice is tailored to support individuals in pursuing these pathways.
Hierarchical organisations are being replaced by networked organisational charts and flatter power structures with a greater demand for specialists and consultants to execute short term strategic projects.
Incubators and Accelerators provide mentorship, funding, and resources to startups from early stage to post revenue. They provide great opportunities for young people to learn and apply principles of design thinking and “fail fast, move forward”, a powerful strategy for fostering innovation and achieving longer-term success.
Many governments also offer grants, loans, and support programs for small businesses and startups.
If your young person shows an interest in entrepreneurship or has a niche, marketable talent encourage them to build a network by attending events and meetups like Startup Weekends, local business networking groups, and industry conferences.
4. Transferable skills are King:
Employability skills, often referred to as soft skills or transferable skills, are broadly applicable across various jobs and industries, making them highly valuable in the modern labour market. Skills such as communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, adaptability, self-management, digital literacy, and teamwork, are increasingly recognized as crucial predictors of job success, sometimes even more so than technical skills. While technical skills are still important and necessary for specific job functions, enterprise skills provide a broader foundation for career success.
By developing transferable skills, through activities such as work placements, networking, project management and collaborative endeavours, it will help to ‘future proof’ young people from ever-present economic uncertainty and the rapidly changing world of work as well as providing them access to a greater range of opportunities and pathways in their early stage careers.
5. Develop a personal brand:
Young people need to regularly engage in self-assessment activities to identify their strengths, interests, values, and career preferences. Personal branding strategies, including resume writing, LinkedIn profiles, and online portfolios, are emphasized to showcase individuals’ skills and experiences to potential employers. There are many great platforms such as Canva and myfuture that provide templates and career development tools to assist young people to develop high quality self-promotion materials.
6. Go Online:
Parents don’t need to have all the answers! There are a plethora of online career assessment tools, virtual career fairs, webinars, and career exploration platforms that provide parents and young people with access to information and resources to support career conversations and decisions. Some useful platforms include:
- myfuture: An Australian Government initiative providing comprehensive career information and exploration resources for students, including career quizzes, occupation profiles, and education pathways.
- Job Outlook: Offers information on employment trends, necessary skills, and average wages across various industries. It also includes career quizzes and resources for students to explore different job opportunities.
- The Good Careers Guide: Provides detailed career profiles, job prospects, and educational pathways. It also features a digital career guide that is updated regularly.
- Youth Central: Victoria’s government site for young people, offering career advice, job search tips, and information on different industries and training opportunities.
- Skillsroad: A comprehensive resource for exploring careers, with tools such as a career quiz, job descriptions, and advice on apprenticeships and traineeships.
- CareerOne: Although primarily a job search engine, it also features career advice articles, industry profiles, and tips for job seekers.
- Australian Apprenticeships Pathways: Focuses on apprenticeship and traineeship opportunities in Australia, providing information on pathways, job descriptions, and training providers.
- Study Work Grow: Offers career exploration tools, study tips, and detailed guides on different career paths. It also provides updates on scholarships, open days, and job opportunities.
7. Experience, Experience, Experience:
We cannot overemphasise enough the importance of gaining practical work experience and industry insights as a means of gathering data to make informed career pathway decisions. Whether it is through casual employment, work placements, job shadowing, or networking opportunities parents are urged to encourage their children to gain real world experience to gain firsthand exposure to different professions and workplaces. Real world learning is also pivotal in developing fundamental employability skills and ensuring that a young person is competitive for early-stage career employment opportunities.
Summary: Start Early, Explore Often
Career exploration should begin early and evolve continuously throughout a child’s educational journey. Encourage your child to explore their interests, strengths, and values. Participating in extracurricular activities, volunteering, and internships can provide invaluable insights and hands-on experience in different fields. Additionally, utilize resources such as career fairs, workshops, and online platforms to broaden their horizons.
Career conversations are not about steering children toward a predetermined path, rather it’s about helping them to gather and interpret data about themselves, nurturing their potential and empowering them to make informed decisions about their futures. By fostering self-awareness, encouraging them to expand their horizons, building confidence by helping them to undertake micro career experiments, flipping the narrative on ‘success’ and ‘failure’, and establishing open, low-risk communication, parents can lay the groundwork for their children’s success and fulfillment.
If you would like to know more about IDEAcademy or discuss how we support young people to transition seamlessly to life beyond school please explore our website or get in touch with our team!
Blogs you may also be interested in:
Series: Navigating the transition from high school to the real world: Part One
School Refusal: Is your child refusing to go back to school?
