What do girls need to be taught about careers/financial matters?

[poshsnobtwit]

This obviously applies to boys and girls, but I'm doing a talk for teen girls so I'm asking about girls specifically. Many times on the careers advice/how to earn £100k threads I've seen posters saying "I wish I knew that when I was young...they don't teach you this in school" and I'm trying to remember what these things were but can't recall a lot of them What I do remember:

1. Working backwards - look at salaries and see what careers fall into this bracket, then choose a career path
2. A salary x3 higher does not mean x3 take home pay
3. The sky's the limit vs the glass ceiling
4. You don't need to be passionate about your work (although it helps)
5. Hard work does not necessarily result in success

Can anyone suggest anything else they wish they had have known, or think is important? Not necessarily positive things, reality is fine too. These are teen girls, from a range of backgrounds, from children of asylum seekers to medical consultants.

It's been mentioned before, but compound interest, high interest rates on credit cards, the benefits of paying into a pension.

If your teens are smart, then inflation and interest rates.

On careers, the basic point that high-paid jobs are usually those that use rare skills that are in high demand.

Different expected financial return to different degrees (that doesn't need to be the deciding factor, but they should be aware of it).

Concept of Ikigai (the intersection of what are you good at, what pays, what do you love, what the world needs).

For people who want to do the most good with their careers, there's a lot of good advice at the 80,000 Hours website.

Work-life-balance, that you can hopefully find a job that you mainly enjoy, which pays decently. But that there's more to life aswell. Pensions. Taking time off to have children. That you will be ok even when something bad happens, you'll get over it. To be accepting of yourself. That you will find your tribe and be happy.

Read the posts about relationships/male partners on MN...

I do want my child to gain financial security, but this thread makes me sad. Money is not everything and should not be the only guide. I don't believe that such a way of thinking will lead to happiness. I would rather my daughter do a job she is passionate about and enjoys, than one that pays plenty but feels soulless. I'd focus more on encouraging children to find a balance.

If they are young and female I would show them the impact of their spending habits.

I have really focused on that in this house recently as I heard « it cost only… » once too often.

a Starbucks a day =how much a year? Now multiply by ten.

Nails/wax/hair/ - ditto and add to above.

Make up - same.

shoes/sneakers - same.

And so on.

They were very surprised how much is thrown away.

They are beginning to see. One especially. The other is a bit of a feather head and will take more time. 😁

💯

this is one I preach loud and clear. Retain financial independence.

Do all these girls have the potential to be aerospace engineers or corporate lawyers or are some of them going to be hairdressers or administrators and eventually start a family which will inevitably entail being mutually financially dependent on their spouse? Like most normal families.

There's no point in making girl A feel shit about herself because she's going to work in a normal job and have a family whilst girl B is working in mergers & acquisitions, earning £100k+ and Not Needing a Man for Anything.

So that you don't bore them to death; give them links to MSE Martin Lewis's handbook for school pupils, briefly about not spending more than they earn, budgeting, avoiding debt and paying themselves first i.e. saving and investments. Oh and question whether they really do need to go to University.

I would quote some salaries. Most have no idea -starting rate , expected pay after x years. Perhaps unis have this info for what different degrees lead to.
Cost of monthly app fees on iPhone.
i encouraged my DDs into ‘men’s’ jobs.

The main one for me would be:

Never, ever, EVER make yourself financially dependent - whether on a partner, family or the State.

The importance of financial self-sufficiency cannot be overstated.

Pensions! The concept of compound interest. Use credit cards and clear the balance every month to improve your credit score. Bills, pension, savings, spending money in that order.

Pensions.
Compound interest.
A teacher once told me that even if you get pregnant and go on maternity leave and don't want to go back to your job don't quit it until near the end of your maternity leave as you never know what will happen.

Cross posted

No job is beneath you, especially when you're young. Try a range of part time jobs. When I was a student I cleaned, babysat, served chips, gardened, did paper rounds, worked in a factory etc. Every job was useful to me.

Please don’t tell them that hard work doesn’t necessarily equal success. I have taught for many years in a range of state and private schools. The work ethic in some schools is really low compared to others and those teenagers who think successful people aren’t working hard and have life handed to them on a plate are being unfairly misled. There are already too many things preventing children from working hard without unhelpful advice from outsiders.

The reason why it makes me annoyed is that we had a very junior person from a magic circle law firm come in and tell my students that they didn’t have to worry about what A levels they took and what results they got. He was showing off and trying not to sound like a teacher. He had obviously gone to a private school where they wouldn’t have been able to take the wrong A levels and a less good result probably meant an A, instead of an A*. I told my students that the competition was tough for high paid jobs and they had to be prepared to work hard and do robust A level subjects. But I was just a teacher, not a city worker in a fancy suit, so they believed him over me.

The following year we got a much better young man from an equivalent firm. He was very clear about the very long hours, the starting salary, how much work he had to do to get there. What A levels he took and why. What degree he had. He was inspiring but also realistic.

The poster is making a genuine point in questioning your qualifications to give careers advice.

I would look at giving the girls the tools to research what they need to about the jobs market and employment trends.

Demand trends in the current jobs market
Where future jobs are in medium and long term
The effect of technology
Stats on sectors dominated by women vs men and look at the reasons why
Pay
Balancing parental expectations and your own career choices ie don't study medicine just because your parents want you to be a doctor
The reality of institutional racism in certain sectors. (There is evidence of this in the NHS)
The sectors encouraging female entrants
Exploring pathways into work - Apprenticeships, degrees, NVQs (pros/cons)
The value of building skills via a Saturday job, babysitting etc
Facing the reality of your capabilities vs desires in the job market
Managing expectations - few people walk into their dream job first time
Entrepreneur-ship and self employment options - the side gig
Moving sideways or to where the jobs are

Finance:
How to save by making small changes and the importance of regular savings
Understanding Debt
Credit card management/savings
Compound interest
Cost of living expenses
The length of working life and importance of pensions. Will state pensions exist when they reach retirement age?

OP, unless you plan on giving a series of talks, your talk will, of necessity, be either superficial or too overloaded with info.

Or your single talk could be a fun, THE THINGS I WISH I KNEW AT 15. Good Luck!

I agree with you @BiscuitsForever, but I also think that there is sometimes a difference in the way that people talk to boys and girls about careers. Girls are more likely to be told to do something they enjoy or find fulfilling whereas with boys the emphasis may be more on money and status. I think this is one of the reasons for the gender pay gap. I think girls should be told that it's ok to say "I want a well paid job" and that doesn't mean you are selfish or grabby, it means you know your own worth.

Choose your career carefully to try and future proof it.or be prepared to retrain esp with AI coming alot of jobs will be reduced or not needed.

1000% this
As a child a lot of female family were nurses and kept their hands in after kids. I saw the difference in their quality of lives and vowed id never be dependent. Even my granny told me to make sure i have my own money.

• Pensions
• Debt
• Investing and risk & compounding

• On the "work backwards" look at careers that are flexible at higher levels as well as high paying (good for when you have kids and / or in bad health and /or want to wind down in 50s
• loyalty generally doesnt pay
• negotiate your salary and benefits
• if you can arguably meet half the criteria listed - apply for the job.

1. You can have it all just not all at once. look carefully into what careers allow women to work as a fully contributing professional while maybe being part time for a period - childcare will 99% full into their lap for consideration
2. speak up, lean in. Young men are usually a lot more confident early in their careers and it’s a large part of why they get earlier traction. Several HR professionals I know say that - the young men are overconfident, the young women not enough

This! Always have your own money and a means of replacing it.

Op investing.

Talk to them about opening up stocks and shares isa, if you can find some illustration to show the difference between 100 in stock and shares isa at 10% and in normal account at say 4%,

To automatically put say 30 pounds of pay away, 10 emergency, 10 longer term, 10 to stock and share.
I'm sure others have better allocation I'm just trying to keep it simple.

Impact of compounding, as it relates to the benefit of contributing early to a pension. Small contributions early on make a really big difference.

I'm not sure if this is good advice or not, but a lot of successful people I know have just carefully plodded along in the same field for some time, perhaps doing relevant extra qualifications over time.
There are people that forge aread and get lots of early promotions in high paying fields. But it's not over if that doesn't happen.

I wish I had prioritized earning more in my twenties when I was single and healthy. Maternity leave...childcare...ill health...have meant that I have never really had a good salary and am dependent on dh. Now friends are retiring early and I don't have any savings or a pension.

Actually I need to come to your talk. 😆