Year 8 parents asking what DC want to do for a career, should they know at this age?!!

[Bowtie292]

The kids are 12-13 years old. Lots of chat amongst the mums going on now about what their plans are for the future. DS hasn't got a clue, all he knows is that he doesn't like school much. Should I be talking more to him about career paths etc? It's not something we've ever really spoken about. The only thing I've said is that university is not the holy grail and if he wants to do something like plumbing etc he has those options too. He's in set 1 for everything but he's not particularly academic and I know from personal experience that it's just assumed you'll go down the uni route. Any thoughts/experiences?

I work in school careers and lots of year 9s have no ideas, and of those that do they are often not realistic, will change their mind later, or are taken from a very narrow pool of ideas (the people they see, so doctor, teacher, hairdresser etc). As for GCSE choices, yes it helps to have something to aim for, and you can shut some doors with your choices, but the vast majority of careers look for English, maths and maybe science, which they have to do anyway.
However, to motivate them and open their eyes it us a good idea to start talking a bit about what's out there and what their interests and strengths are. If he likes maths and dt

I'm qualified careers adviser and it's absolutely fine for children to not know what they want to do at this age.

I've always pushed against the idea that indecision is a bad thing. We shouldn't be pushing children as young as 13 or 14 ( and even older) to make a decision. We should be teaching career management skills so they are able to properly research and explore the work of work.

Arrgh, posted too soon! I was going to say if he likes maths and do he could look at engineering and construction which are both huge with uni and apprenticeship routes. Some nice websites around eg mtfy.org.uk/ to get ideas about engineering and Go Construct. . If you happen to be in Wales the careers wales site has some quizzes too. Or bbc bitesize has a nice careers section with videos.

However, his mum telling him to do those may not go down well if it seems like extra homework! And actually at that age they don't always interpret or consider the results very maturely.

I think this is probably the single thing that private and high performing schools do better than others. They get children interested in their careers at an early stage

It's now statutory for all state schools in England to start careers education in year 8. This is likely to be extended to year 7 shortly.

In careers theory there is a nice idea of 'planned happenstance' ie if you don't have a specific goal, you can see what comes along, but to improve your chances of finding something you like, you need to take any opportunities for experience, volunteering, hobbies etc and be curious - talk to people about their jobs, attend careers events etc. It's not right for everyone but probably better than having one goal when you are too young to even tell if that's realistic.

Planned happenstance is my favourite career theory!!

The combination of planning, attitude and chance is how most people's careers develop.

I have 2 teens aged 14 and 16 (year 11). No frickin clue what they what to do! It’s fine - I just encouraged them to do subjects that they enjoyed and were good at. They’ll work it out soon enough.

I think the conversation about Uni not being the only option is a good one. I always knew Uni wasn't for me, but for my school and sixth form it was the be all and end all, consequently I was left without any direction from that side. No talk of apprenticeships or vocational courses or internships.

I fell into travel by working in a local hotel as a teen, knew I was good at it, realised somewhere in my 20s I love the industry with a passion and in my mid-30s accidentally found my way into travel marketing, which has finally given me a clear development path.

I wish I'd have been sat down at a younger age and had someone say 'right, you're enjoying this hotel / customer service work, so have you thought about X, Y or Z as ways to develop and progress?'

I didn’t know at that age. I then ended up doing my degree in a subject that my parents made me take for GCSE that I fell in love with over time. By the end of my degree, so when I was around 22, I then knew I wanted a career in a completely unrelated field and went on to do further study and on the job training for that.

I don't think it's a private school thing, I think it's more of a class thing.

I remember speaking to family members, friends of my parents and some of their grown up kids, work colleagues of my parents, and adults I knew through hobbies as part of my research.

This in particular being hard to do if your parents and their friends don't have varied jobs (or any jobs) or if you don't have the kinds of hobbies that let you meet people.

Online research is much easier now but one of the big problems is knowing what jobs are out there and what they involve if you don't have any exposure to them.

Exactly this.

The other thing is to consider broad sectors eg. Legal, finance, civil service and look into roles within a sector that is of interest.

Good idea but I wouldn't have known where to start with any of those! And surely there are so many sectors it's difficult to cover all of them.

I know a problem for me was not having a clue what different industries were out there and thinking that you had to pick something highly specialised - so for example I was interested in art/graphics/IT and went along those lines and ended up in the region of "media" - but I had no concept that I could have gone into product design, UX design, for a whole plethora of companies - anything like that which is where I'm looking at now. I just assumed media/ design/etc was all TV and magazines and stuff like that.

DH wanted to work "in the games industry" but has ended up (in a games company) doing a kind of project management, which is something I never really knew existed and I didn't really understand what he did until lockdown.

Because I now have a better understanding that big companies break down all the jobs of running them into really specialised parts that all work together I can see careers almost from a completely different angle. You could do project management in the games industry or the automobile industry or charity work or any number of other things, it's like an entire different dimension that I didn't know existed as a teenager, and has got me thinking differently as an adult. Something I'm vaguely interested in but don't have the right skills to do as a job might still be a sector I could find fitting work in, for instance.

I don't know if that makes sense. But it makes me wish I'd done maths or stats or science or something - I was good at those, I just had no concept of what I could do with those subjects and pictured being a scientist in a white coat in a lab which probably isn't for me.

DD decided when she was 8 or 9 that she wanted to be a biochemist. She's just gone into year 11 and hasn't changed her mind - she even has a shortlist of universities in mind and has started trying to get relevent work experience for next summer once her GCSEs are out the way. She's just like DP - very driven and single minded.

Sadly for DS he's more like me - so laid back he's nearly falling over and has absolutely no idea what he'd like to do in the future beyond being happy Still he's only just gone into year 5 so hopefully he'll become a bit more focussed later on.

I don't think there's an age at which people should just know.. some know, some know later and some never know and if they're lucky fall into the right thing for them.

Are they really talking seriously about careers or is it at the stage where they are saying ' I want to be a ...', where it's all more role play in their heads than any actual idea?

None of mine had any concrete ideas at that age. As they went through high school encouraged them to identify their strengths and not narrow down their options too much. Luckily we are in a place where they didn't have to narrow down to any specific track or set of subjects until university.

I assess kids as part of my job and do ask them what their dream job would be- pretty much every kid wants to be a YouTuber these days!

Some kids don't know obviously which is fine. I usually then ask them about the type of job they really wouldn't want to do. That's often easier- I usually get working in an office, with animals, anything maths related etc.
Your dc will find their strengths and interests. They're still so young.

@BertieBotts

I don't think it's a private school thing, I think it's more of a class thing.

I remember speaking to family members, friends of my parents and some of their grown up kids, work colleagues of my parents, and adults I knew through hobbies as part of my research.

This in particular being hard to do if your parents and their friends don't have varied jobs (or any jobs) or if you don't have the kinds of hobbies that let you meet people.

Online research is much easier now but one of the big problems is knowing what jobs are out there and what they involve if you don't have any exposure to them.

Exactly this.

The other thing is to consider broad sectors eg. Legal, finance, civil service and look into roles within a sector that is of interest.

Good idea but I wouldn't have known where to start with any of those! And surely there are so many sectors it's difficult to cover all of them.

I know a problem for me was not having a clue what different industries were out there and thinking that you had to pick something highly specialised - so for example I was interested in art/graphics/IT and went along those lines and ended up in the region of "media" - but I had no concept that I could have gone into product design, UX design, for a whole plethora of companies - anything like that which is where I'm looking at now. I just assumed media/ design/etc was all TV and magazines and stuff like that.

DH wanted to work "in the games industry" but has ended up (in a games company) doing a kind of project management, which is something I never really knew existed and I didn't really understand what he did until lockdown.

Because I now have a better understanding that big companies break down all the jobs of running them into really specialised parts that all work together I can see careers almost from a completely different angle. You could do project management in the games industry or the automobile industry or charity work or any number of other things, it's like an entire different dimension that I didn't know existed as a teenager, and has got me thinking differently as an adult. Something I'm vaguely interested in but don't have the right skills to do as a job might still be a sector I could find fitting work in, for instance.

I don't know if that makes sense. But it makes me wish I'd done maths or stats or science or something - I was good at those, I just had no concept of what I could do with those subjects and pictured being a scientist in a white coat in a lab which probably isn't for me.

I totally agree with you.

Incidentally I wasn't private school. My parents went to secondary modern schools and left at 15 and 16.

It is a huge disadvantage to not have a massive network of people in great jobs. Luckily my parents were the generation that were able to progress without qualifications and had high aspirations for me. A huge privilege but not quite private school!

The hobby is not one where there are highly paid careers. I am eternally grateful that my parents pushed me to go to uni rather than accept the YTS I was offered connected to my hobby as I would be earning poverty wages with a broken body by now!

The best thing they can do at that age is to explore their interests.

My DDs' school has a lot of focus on careers from Y7 with things like career quizzes and unifrog career exploration & such. The general message from the school is being exposed to a wider range of careers and lifting aspirations which is nice, though there have also been messages about having a specific goal means kids are more likely achieve well which I'm not as certain about (and with many who get degrees not working in their fields, I feel may be setting up unrealistic expectations). When I was that age, it was more on considering multiple paths which is how I try to support my kids.

My DD1 started to panic at that age when school was starting to push having one path as she kept comparing herself to those who did fit that (like her older brother, though I had to point out he has a general idea enough to pick an area of study, but dozens of possible job options he's considering) while DD1 from an early age would be one of those kids who said they were going to be a doctor-astronaut-artist-skater... and was less certain about everything. I reminded her many adults aren't working in the fields they picked at 12-14, or even at 18-20, and that keeping her options open and learning about herself would help her find her fit when she finds it. That seemed to help her, along with generally being light about it (so when her teacher sent a thing where they're meant to say what they want to be as adults, I said I hope she continues to be a human being which gave her a laugh and we discussed how none of the adults she knows are their jobs).

I also picked her up Barbara Sher's Refuse to Choose which discusses how to put different interests together, it was recommended to me for this.