DD (Y8) wants something to aim for career wise, help me to give her some ideas.

Research science certainly isn't well paid and it's very insecure.

Likewise teaching, but teaching is still a very very good job if you go into it with you eyes open, are really good with children and adults (lots of teachers aren't) and expect bull shit.

DD2 will have gone all through school with Ofsted, Gove, targets and OTT colour coded marking. She knows you have endless meetings and loads of work after school.

She will walk in with her eyes open, knowing you plan every lesson on your computer, you save every possible useful resource, you enter every bit of pupil data when you get it.

You accept the shit and develop systems to cope with it. I couldn't do it, petty rules make me DD2 can.

I work at a university but am employed on a grant from a medical charity. I have only ever worked this way and this is the norm in my field - I don't know a single person employed directly on uni money. We are not allowed to spend much time doing things other than our research on the grant so therefore no teaching. I am in the lab all day, so work whatever hours I choose (usually 6.30 am - 3.30pm). I have very few meetings and it means I am utterly free to determine my own working day. This is the big perk of the job for me.

Don't write it off!

Pickledsiblings, we have no politicians in the family but many of my family and friends are fairly politically active in some way. dd goes to Woodcraft Folk which does have quite a lot of political activity and they hold mock elections etc so she goes on demos etc. It's certainly not a career I'd have suggested. But the PPE idea means she has already looked up facilitating A level subjects (Maths and History, apparently) and that's probably enough to be going on with. That dd likes to have a goal. I'm sure she'll change her mind anyway.

Pickled does your dd do anything outside of school.

I was once told to find something I enjoyed doing then try and find an angle to make money doing it. Better to do something you enjoy than spend your life doing something you hate just because it pays the bills.

There is a free quiz on Www.icould.com called the Buzz quiz. It's based on the Myers Briggs personality typing test, and will reveal your 'type', depending on how extrovert/introvert you are and how you like to make decisions. The results can give a general steer towards a group of careers. For example, engineers tend to have a rational and problem-solving bent. If you prefer to operate based on your instinct, you could be very unhappy in such a job. It is a good start to take the test then you can research careers for that 'type'.

Do they have career fairs at your dd's school? I have 2 boys at secondary school. There is a careers fair at their school each October. Ds2 (13 yr9) only went along because ds1 (15 yr11) was going. He thought he'd ask about journalism and law. He came back determined to go in to geology!
He is set on it. He had had a chat with a young man who works in the oil industry. He made it all sound so interesting that ds2 has formed his career path!

I don't know if he'll make it, but it's lovely to see him focussed on it. Up until that point he had thought law or music, but dh has been doing his best to put him off music. Meanwhile ds1 came back with no idea!

No I don't think that's true at all. My mate is a professor at 39 with two dc. I'm a way behind, but I'm 31 with two dc and earn very well and have some big successes. University work that involves teaching is very hard; pure research has none of these concerns.

I think it's a bit sad that you'd rule out careers they might be interested in just because it's not incredibly well paid. Scientists, marine biologists etc are completely respectable career ambitions.

You may end up with them doing degrees to please you or feeling a failure of they c don't live up to b your goals for them.

My DD (9) is keen on working in a fudge shop, but I've suggested she could do that as a teenager and maybe do something more challenging longer term. She now says she wants to be a potter, which I think is a bit unrealistic!

How about thinking about what she wants from a job, rather than the job itself?

The job I'm in is one that I wouldn't have had a clue even existed until I saw it advertised. It's quite a general policy/project/support role, but it's varied and I love it. I don't know what I want to progress to after this, as in actual job title/type of business, but the things I do know I want are:

• Office type environment
• Education/arts/charity focused organisation
• Possibility of work related travel
• The opportunity to initiate my own work/a level of autonomy
• More public/3rd sector than private

There's quite a variety of jobs that fit those criteria and I'd find it impossible to pin it down any further! How about thinking about whether she wants:

• a highly focused or specialist role vs a more general one
• a job rooted in one place vs opportunity to travel lots
• a more individual role vs a team role
• a customer/client facing role vs a more background one

I'd also suggest looking at actual job adverts (Guardian jobs has a good variety) as well as careers websites, as I think careers sites don't necessarily cover business/admin/project roles very well as compared to more vocational/specialist things like medicine, engineering, law, teaching etc

pickled yes, my DD was in a West End show. The rules of employment for children mean she's currently on a break, but she will do another stint soon (in the same show).

It's been an experience she's greatly enjoyed. And she's keen to move to a sixth form in London so she can get more work (if any comes along). But she's very aware that it might not and wants to crack on with her academic career in the meantime.

I think she's nervous about throwing her hat into the ring and saying she will go for it IYSWIM. Sometimes she says she'd like to direct, or write too.

DS is much easier. He wants to do something around economics. Possibly venture capitalism.

I'm a scientist, I think it is quite well paid? Be a professor by age 45 and you'll be on 90k + . I LOVE my job and it is surprisingly family friendly.

But if her dad is a scientist I guess she knows all about it already :)

I don't know anyone in a job that wasn't invented thirty years ago when I was in school. Apart from one software developer - I am trying to think of an equivalent role for him back in the day.

I must just know too many conventional people!

My DC are both at or just finished Uni. Both of them struggled during school. DS wanted to be a pilot, possibly the air force. But found his way via a love of music into theatre tech, and joined the army to teach him how to drive (he always goes a strange way about things). He still dreams of being a roadie with a rock band, and that could still happen.

DD was always a brilliant dancer, but was wary of choosing it as a career. Toyed with teaching, but it's fiercely competitive and very stressful these days, so she decided to gave dancing a fair go first, and is half way through a degree course in that. It's a brutally short career, but she's aware of that. Her street smarts and enthusiasim will guide her after that.

Back in the mists of time I wanted to be an astronaut. That led to my university studies, but my career took a slightly different trajectory afterwards.

You seem very focused on how much money she would make - if you are excluding things like science, engineering and marine biology because they don't pay well enough she is going to be very limited. I'd have thought you will need to look up the best paying jobs and take it from there. NB the legal profession is in a terrible state at the moment and it is getting worse - and most lawyers are quite badly paid already, much less than an engineer. Doctors and dentists earn loads of money. Likewise bankers of course.

x-posted a bit there with enderwoman, in case you think I was disagreeing....

Honestly? Careers and jobs alter and change so quickly these days. Half the jobs that people do today didnt even exist 20 years ago. And young people tend to aim for a career portfolio rather than just one job.

But there's a shortage of enginners.

Our school had a GCSE options talk for y8 yesterday and it was suggested that most y8 don't know what they want to be and it could be a job that's not been even invented yet.