If you had your time again, what career would you do? Did you know much about the options as a teen?

[AbsentmindedWoman]

Job hunting at the min so thinking a lot about different options...The more I look at, the more I realise I wasn't aware of a vast amount of careers when I was at school or university. My interests are all creative, so I was a bit clueless for a long time about all kinds of corporate careers, for example. Plus loads of other stuff.

If I was doing it all again, I'd like to have a broad idea of different potential areas that might suit me - a proper careers guidance service in school would have been so helpful. I'm working with a career coach now and she's fantastic. Why are schools generally not that great with this?

Has it changed now? Do your older teens get useful info in second level education?

Anyway, just for fun - if you were about to step into the world of work for the first time, equipped with what you now know about yourself - do you know what would you love to do?

I would love to have been a climate scientist and spent time in Antarctica with the BAS - awesome work. I do work at a uni but not as an academic, in student support. I enjoy it but have itchy feet - too late to retrain with 2 kids tho!!

I don't remember receiving any good advice. The school was focused on further education only, which was helpful up to a point.

I wish I'd known more about publishing (and what preparation is needed to enter the profession). Ditto making programmes/documentaries for radio and television, and also the law.

I also think schools should be more honest about salary expectations. As a teenager I thought a salary in itself would be enough. I don't think that now, and although I am willing to work my socks off, no one's earning megabucks in my industry.

If I lived again, I'd want to be a trauma surgeon - and specifically I wouldn't go to uni to train, I'd go via the army.

In reality, I was undiagnosed autistic with a crappy family life, so I clung to my boyfriend like a limpet. Didn't do anywhere near as well in my alevels as I should have, declined my uni place and moved in with him.

Good career guidance wouldn't have fixed that. 😕

I do remember the Careers advisor saying if you do become a nurse the pay is bad but you might marry a doctor!

Christ! I hope that careers advice has moved on from this! It’s equally funny and depressing.

I agree with the posters who say educate kids about the salary ranges for particular professions. They might decide that ‘do what you love’ is one thing, but that doing something you like for five times the salary is preferable. Interesting that it’s girls who are usually given the ‘do what you love’ advice, isn’t it?

I’m an accountant. I chose it myself, in my 20s, after a science degree. There was sod all advice about this at school. I trained in a big four firm, and I was struck by how many of my fellow trainees had been pushed into the profession by their middle class parents. They knew where the money was: let’s give that knowledge to kids from poorer backgrounds.

I attended a normal high school in the Midlands during the 1990s. I don't remember any carrer advice at all.
The school only ever spoke about further education which was rammed down our throats.
I hadn't a clue what I wanted to do, and my parents never discussed it with me. I chose random a levels and then went on the study an unrelated degree at my local uni, only because I wasn't ready to work then!!
Its 20 years later now and I have never used any of my qualifications.

I hope for my children things will be different. We can already see now that our son is not academic, plus he hates sitting at a desk all day. We will guide him towards a trade if possible, or something where he can be active each day rather than being in an office etc.
I remember at school some of the boys were told they would amount to nothing, they just left at 16. They are mostly successful self employed tradesmen who earn really good money.

I left school mid-80s. We were factory/shop fodder or, if achieving high grades, a nurse/secretary if female. Although the careers advisor managed our expectations and suggested we’d probably all be on the dole!
I would’ve liked to be a journalist or worked in dramatic arts. I’m a secretarial manager

I don't remember getting much useful advice. I didn't excel at any particular subject, I was just average or slightly above average in everything except maths which I was hopeless at. When I said I wanted to be a vet, I was told to forget it as my maths wasn't good enough. I then told my mum I wanted to be a psychiatrist but she said I was being daft and I wasn't nearly clever enough.
I have a degree but at 40 and I've worked hard but have never developed a specialism and I'm just muddling along in an average job that I don't really like With no real hope of progressing further and no idea what I would do instead. I wish I'd had the self esteem at the time to tell the careers adviser and my parents that they didn't know what they were talking about and gone on to be a vet, I'd have loved it. But I'm 40. It's too late now

In theory we had assessments and quite good advice, but the reality was you got given a long list of job titles to google with no sense of what kind of company might hire you to do that thing, so it was hard to imagine yourself in any of the job roles you didn't already know about.

It didn't have what I do now on it, because it didn't really exist then!

I didn't get great advice - it was always "so what do you want to do...? Here's what uni courses you could take to get there..." or "Hmm, that's very competitive... Is there anything else?"

In reality, I had no idea what I wanted to do & I let myself be discouraged from doing anything "competitive" & ended up on a path to do something that there was a well-publicised lack of thinking I'd just walk into a job. Unfortunately, it was something I was only mildly interested in & I struggled & eventually left uni without any qualifications.

I wish I'd studied something I was really interested in & I could've found out about careers other than doctor/lawyer/accountant/teacher/etc. while studying & figured out what to do as I went along.

I frequently highlight a variety of jobs to DC so they know how many options they have. I'll never tell them something's too "competitive" to pursue, I'll support anything they're passionate about & encourage them to work hard to achieve their dreams.

I'm now mid-30s with no career, a family & no opportunity, or ideas, for studying/pursuing any new path. Thankfully, DH has an OK paying job in something that he's always wanted to do. I wish I had that!

I would do the same again (historian), but I would be better at it, push harder at those doors, demand more responsibility from the start, not sit round and wait for people to realise I was good, not do that female thing of denigrating myself hoping people would like me.

Career guidance in my isolated neck of the wood was confined to the doctor, teacher, shop worker, factory worker range. For work experience you got a choice between porter at the local hospital, factory work and shadowing a teacher. I choose the teacher and actually had quite a fun time with a class of 10yos for 2 weeks.

Because I had an overall high score I was advised to study STEM- I was actually very bad at sciences and had only just managed to scrape that B (otoh I was very good at the languages & humanities and those As went way beyond curriculum requirements). My careers meetings were tick box exercises where I politely thanked the careers officer for their trouble and explained I had a different career in mind. In truth, I had no idea how to get there and there was no one to advise me.

Agree all the 'thicos' were guided to trades and Tec courses and anyone else pushed to a levels to seek a job as either nurse, doctor, accountant or teacher.
Guess who are now running sucessful businesses and out earning the clever ones?!
I was surprised to be given young adult career advice in the 90's where my skills were matched to visual merchandising. So that become my first job which i stayed in for 5 years. By that point I finally realised I needed to find a better paid career so moved into something totally different and so unique I find it hard to describe my role. Suffice to say it depends heavily on maths which back in the day was my weakest skill. Turns out, 30 years down the line, I am actually very good at it. It does make me wonder what I could have acheived if I'd realised that earlier.

I agree with a pp about there only being university jobs offered, which applied to what a'levels you took, which in turn consisted of which gcse subjects you were strongest at. No mention of university subjects such as architecture or law and no mention of nvq subjects or apprenticeships, the amount of rich builders/electricians I know who earn considerably more than most of my degree educated friends is astounding. I have always wanted to do teaching, so this was fairly straightforward for me. Pastoral/careers advice was seriously lacking even 15years ago when I was at school. I ensure I tie my subject in to what my pupil wants to do when they leave school and demonstrate how this will help them further in life. I have done other roles before going back in to teaching a few years back and I can say I gained so much experience, life skills, confidence and patience which has been an invaluable transferable skill. Schools need to stop taking a round peg, round hole approach to all students.

I did a maths degree (prob should have switched to CompSci after first year) and then a happy career in IT/computing.

I've always wondered about archaeology though...

I was very academic so wasn’t pushed towards a particular career so much as doing an impressive course at uni, so I went and studied Classics at Oxford. Turns out I much prefer doing something that has more of a direct impact on people’s lives so I’m currently training as an occupational therapist.

I wasn't given much choice when I left school - i wanted to go to 6th form but wasn't clever enough so i chose a college course but school wouldn't give me a reference for it as they told me i was unsuitable for the course. i did a course that i was told to do and hated it and then got a job i hated. i worked in the same area for 20 years and tried to retrain but failed the course so i am back working in a minimum wage job. my ambitions have always been beyond my ability.

I didn’t really get any careers advice from either school or parents. I became an accountant and I can’t really complain about it. It brought e much wanted financial security after a very insecure and deprived childhood.

I sometimes wish I had done something more unusual, like oceanography, zooology, something scientific and not desk based.

I wanted to work with children so was told to be a childrens nurse.
I wish I had thought to train as a midwife. Im now in admin so maybe an IT career would have been better for me?

@TeenPlusTwenties, I had an ex who was an archaeologist. It's not half as glamorous as it seems - he spent a lot of time cold and wet, digging about in mud. It's very badly paid too - this was a long time ago but it was on a par with a carers/retail wage which considering you need a degree and the working conditions are crap, is poor. Things might be different now and it is an interesting subject in itself.

I suppose these are the sorts of things we need a career advisor for - to point out the realities.

I had no idea what I wanted to do. I didn’t receive any careers advice but we each got a turn to use the careers computer programme that suggested I become a florist. My family all worked in manual jobs or retail and I didn’t really know what else was out there, and the school never really encouraged us to aim high so I imagined many professional jobs wouldn’t be suitable for someone like me. All of my school friends went into nursing or teaching because those were the careers we knew about.

I started volunteering in college to figure out what I liked, and fell into my first career but after ten years moved to something different after I saw an interesting job advertisement. I love my new career but it’s an industry I’d never even imagined growing up. I signed up to Inspiring the Future as mentioned by another poster because I think I would have really benefited from hearing about a variety of different jobs as a school child.

I'd have persevered and gone on to study medicine. I was just a bit lazy and wanted to travel instead as it was easier.

So, there is now statutory guidance on what careers education should look like in schools and it’s based around a very sensible framework called the Gatsby Benchmarks. You should be able to look at the websites of your schools and see what your school’s policy is and how they deliver careers education.

Definitely consider signing up for something like inspiring the future - as mentioned up thread. As schools need help and outside people to come in and help deliver. Your school might do something like Mock Interviews, so if you have experience at interviewing they’d probably bite your hand off. And also work experience - don’t wait to be asked - if you could host a student , find out who is the Careers Leader at school and offer a place (appreciate hard with covid). Lots happening virtually , which actually should make it easier for employers to participate.

All the research shows that parents are still the biggest influence on their children. So look at the websites (I could, success at school, career pilot.org.uk, healthcare careers etc). Make sure you know what an apprenticeship is, what gets offered in your area, how much university costs (Martin Lewis is brilliant at this ). Schools will be doing all this, but your influence might be greater, so you can really help your kids if you’re up to speed too.

And there are still quizzes you can do ! Also I love SACU for A level students. Can enter your a levels and it tells you what degrees other students with the same a level subjects have gone on to do. (Useful right now for those uncertain Yr13s!!)

I think my different schools tried, but the work experience was mostly 'who do you (and your parents for most) know and willing to put up with you for a day' than anything that would really teach about those type of careers or what types of jobs we would be suitable for and like. The career advice at my last high school was mainly 'you'll figure it out at university'.

This may partially explain why so many in my high school graduating class became teachers when not following in their family's footsteps. It was pretty easy to get work experience at one of the local schools compared with a lot of other options.

My older kids say that haven't had much in terms of career advice at school, though my Y11 DS's has a career programme that he's planned to start this year (how much of it is going to be done is up for question, but they have a calendar of college-wide events with the Gatsby Benchmarks mentioned by pp, he'll get advised which ones are suitable for KS4 students, as well as individual 'progression guidance'. He's suppose to see his 'as soon as we can expand our bubbles'). At the moment, it looks like most are going to be switched to Zoom for this autumn, but nothing confirmed yet.

on mission vs job, they've done some of the career quizzes like career explorer, glassdoor's what job should I do, pearson's career choices, and others and discuss the results, and pre-COVID they both did volunteering & we've discussed work experience later. Hopefully better than what I did.

I've no idea what I would do even with all I know now. Really, a lot of the options now weren't really a thing back then and a lot of the US-based stuff ended up less useful once I immigrated. I think I would have focused more on trying different things and making a portfolio of work - giving me more option for work or self-employment - rather than just follow the track of 'finding where to go to university' to academia that I thought I was going to do.

I don't remember really getting any career advice at all at school or university, and I don't think I had enough ambition or self confidence, or knowledge of what careers were out there, to reach my potential. I remember graduating (from an Arts subject) and feeling as if after 3 years I still had no idea what I wanted to, or could do, and I wasn't actually qualified for anything! As a result I drifted through various jobs/careers and gradually found things I was good at and enjoyed. But if I had my time again I would love to work in publishing. I think I would have loved it and found it really interesting but I had the idea it was "difficult to get into" and so I never tried.

I wanted to be a nurse or journalist. My xareers advisor tried to get us all into banking . I tried the nursing and realised I was not cut out for it. So, maybe journalist, or something in an art gallery or museum.