Research shows that parents and close family members are the biggest influence on a young person’s career decisions. Every young person develops career maturity at a different rate and some students are ready before others to talk about future plans. As with any conversation with a teenager – pick your moment! Being encouraging and supportive of your child’s career ideas is vital to keeping the lines of communication open. Check out this recent article https://www.careers.govt.nz/articles/talking-careers-with-your-young-person/
Parents as first career educators: This 10-minute Aussie doco with ex-Home and Away actor Mark Furze aka ‘Ric Delby’ has some common-sense advice for talking with your young person about careers.
Have you ever been concerned that you or your child can’t stick at one thing or one job? This powerful Ted Talk opens up the possibilities of multiple careers and why not having just one passion or direction might actually be a good thing.
Subject Choices
Careers NZ has a wealth of information and interactive activities. On their front page is a direct link for students to help them with subject choices. We also recommend doing the Career Quest Quiz (again) to consider different career pathways.
When a young person does not have a specific career in mind, help them to define broad interest areas based on their skills and interests. Then help them investigate lots of options in that field. Encourage them to discuss with people who know them well including staff at school, family friends, employers and coaches and to use the job-search tool on the career services website.
This site offers an extensive range of career information such as job descriptions, funding details, training, industry overviews and further links.
At the college our career mentors Ms Lucas and Ms Whipp are available to meet with you and your rangatahi for guidance around choosing the right subjects. You will find them just inside the gym at URSpace (“yoUr Social, Personal and Career Education”).
Four areas of career development
- Self knowledge
- Opportunity awareness
- Decision Making
- Transition Skills
Self-awareness (the ability to identify and articulate motivations, skills and personality as they affect career plans);
Opportunity awareness (knowledge of opportunities and the ability to research these);
Decision-making (being able to weigh up personal factors to make a sound plan);
Transition learning (understanding of how to seek and secure opportunities).