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Career Exploration

Career Planning.jpg
Why is Career Exploration Important?

"Career exploration is key to helping your teen discover and get excited about potential professions. The earlier you can encourage exploration for your teen, the sooner they can discover their dream job.  Stride Career Prep allows students to explore pathways before graduating high school. Finding a dream job takes trial and error, which is why career exploration as a teenager can be very useful. By allowing students to figure out what they like and don't like in middle school and high school, they can narrow their path before entering the workforce or college" (Stride K12, 2021 Links to an external site.).

Links to an external site.

 

 

1. Self-Reflection

Students who are undecided about their career interests should take a career cluster inventory or career interest survey Links to an external site. to identify one or two career fields that would be a good fit. Career cluster inventories are available on many high school, college career services and state education websites- O*NET Online: Explore various careers through multiple tools: https://www.onetonline.org/find/ Links to an external site.

"Many careers within a career cluster Links to an external site. have similar skills, abilities and values. For example, perhaps a student loves music. To explore potential career options outside of music performance, that student could research the arts, audio/visual technology and communications cluster Links to an external site.. Doing so may encourage them to consider careers in audio engineering, hospitality, music production, graphic design or telecommunications" (CollegiateParent, 2021 Links to an external site.).

Additionally, students should discuss the following questions with trusted adults such as teachers, parents, school counselors, coaches or faith leaders in order to better understand their own skills, interests and strengths.

  • What type of difference do you want to make in the world?
  • What activities do you lose track of time doing because you enjoy them so much?
  • Would you prefer to work with your hands, objects, data, people or ideas?

 

2. Career Research

Once students have a sense of a few career paths they might be interested in, they should use credible sources such as the ones listed below to learn more about each career.

Specifically, students should look up the following information about each career that they’re interested in:

  • Wages
  • Required preparation, education and licensing
  • Typical daily activities, values and skills required
  • Labor statistics, such as the projected job outlook, to determine if there are likely to be jobs in that field available in the future

Students should discuss their findings with their parents and/or school counselor to help determine if the careers under consideration are a good personal fit. They should also talk to their family about the affordability of each career, keeping in mind the expected entry-level salary and anticipated student loan debt associated with each.

Here are some local career research tools/programs:

 

3. Planning and Exploration

Next, students should find ways to further explore their career interests by gaining hands-on experience and getting to know people who actually have those careers.

Students can do this by:

  • Conducting informational interviews (virtually or in person)
  • Job shadowing Links to an external site. to see what a day (or morning/afternoon) on the job looks like
  • Touring a facility to get a sense of the workplace environment
  • Participating in activities related to their career interests (i.e, summer camps, clubs, workshops, etc.)

At the same time, students should take the appropriate steps (consulting their school counselor as needed) to plan for their future career. These steps include:

  • Selecting high school classes related to the future career, planning accordingly for college admissions within the major for the career field in mind
  • Completing an internship or apprenticeship (some high schools offer this as a class)
  • Applying for part-time jobs and performing community service within the career cluster in order to gain experience and a better understanding of the field

We know that adults spend the majority of their waking hours at work, which has a huge impact on both job and overall life satisfaction. With this in mind, it’s important to consider the value in selecting a career field that will bring contentment and spark joy. The outlined career exploration steps can be repeated as a students’ interests and experiences grow and change (CollegiateParent, 2021 Links to an external site.).

Specific Job Resources with EduMED: 

Specific Job Resources with University HQ: