What do you want to be when you grow up?

The age-old question of ‘what do you want to be when you grow up’ causes a lot of anxiety in young people today. Not everyone knows what they want to do, or if they do - they can often be unsure of how to go about taking the first step towards their career journey. As a career guidance practitioner or mentor for a younger person, knowing how to guide someone can save years of anxiety and costly mistakes.

When assisting a person with career guidance the initial step should be one that will assist in defining their interests, values, and beliefs. By asking what they are good at and why they enjoy it, we can assist in directing a client toward a passionate and long successful career. Simple questions to ask your clients could be.

• What subjects do/did you enjoy at school?
• What areas in life do you do well in or find it easy to succeed in?
• What do you like to do in your spare time?

Often these questions can be difficult to answer, so I recommend suggesting a career quiz. There are a lot of online career quizzes available that can assist you by highlighting the candidates.

• Personality traits
• Values in life
• Skills, talents and passions

The answers to these questions will culminate in lists of jobs that your clients will more than likely be successful in.

Psychometric testing matches traits and values required in specific roles with those that match an individual. This type of testing provides the candidate with an insight into their personal self. The next step lies in researching the different roles that match their personality, to see if they are interested in this type of career.

The next step would be to start researching the industry, the number of pathways within it, the training required to be qualified and future career progression that may be available.

Creating an action plan helps you list the steps your client would need to take and keeps a list of what has been researched. Next, have your client write some career goals with achievable time frames and you have started the ball rolling in helping your client find an exciting new career.

Once your client has researched and talked to others about their choice of career, to ensure a strong career fit, it’s a good idea to take it a step further by ‘trying before you buy’. Participating in hands on work experience and completing a ‘week in the life of your career’, allows them to see if this career is what they expected it to be. If it isn’t, then you begin the process again with them until you find the right career match. This method of trial and error is one of the best ways to help your clients get clarity about what they want to be or do.

Ideally this process should be undertaken once the candidate has reached the age of 15 but there is no age limit to exploring new career pathways. Undertaking a vocational course can also equip the candidate with valuable employability skills and life experience. These types of courses could be in the actual industry area or within an area that will provide them with transferable skills.

All in all, each of these opportunities will assist the career client in being able to differentiate and fine tune their career goals and help them make well informed decisions about their future.

If you are interested in an exciting new career in Career Development and Guidance or want to formalise your coaching practises, speak to our consultants today on how you can get started in your Certificate IV in Career Development.

For more information go to; https://www.blueprintcd.com.au/course/education-and-careers/certificate-iv-career-development