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

[pickledsiblings]

She's a hardworking girl and enjoys school/homework/studying. Her strengths seem to be in those subjects that require extended writing although she is a pretty good all rounder. She has taken well to French and Latin too where I'm sure her good memory helps her along.

Anyway she has no idea what she would like to be when she grows up and would like to have something to aim for. All I've come up with so far is Law as I think it would be a good match for her skills but I'm not sure that's a good enough reason.

I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas. What are your DC aiming for? When you were young, how/when did you decide on the career you wanted?

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!

curlew, sounds like your DS is well on his way to his dream job.

MaddAddam how does a Y8 DD get to the stage where she wants to be PM? I am genuinely curious. Are there politicians in the family or other such connections? What sparked her interest? I think it's a great thing to aspire to as she will no doubt know by now that top class results are needed to get anywhere near and getting those will keep lots of doors open.

Good point Ender and Melanie about the changing job landscape.

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 :)

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.

Drome my youngest (he's only 6) was at the dentist recently and she was so lovely and explained everything so well to him that he thinks it would be a great job.

Neither mine nor my DH's job existed 30 years ago funny.

Melanie I love the sound of your DCs career meanderings. Good on your DD for giving dancing a go, she could always end up running her own school if she was so inclined.

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

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!

EduCated that's really good advice, thank you! Like you I love my current job and wouldn't have known it existed. It gives me the opportunity to do some similar things on your list that I hadn't realised where important to me.

Thanks to all of you for sharing your ideas.

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.

bigkids academics have it hard, especially women and the pay is woeful in the early days. One kid and your career trajectory to Prof would be pretty much scuppered - no? Kudos to you if you made it, kids and all.

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.

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!

schlike I had to smile at DS1 coming back with no idea.

bigkid Can you do pure research and end up a Prof? Do you not work for a Uni then? Do you mean working for the MRC or something? I obviously haven't researched science careers well enough, it would be great if you could give me some pointers. It's really good to know that having DC doesn't have to scupper things when following a career in scientific research and that the levels of pay can be good.

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'.

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.

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.

Confuseddd I'll have a look at that thanks. I remember doing something similar years ago, wish I'd paid more attention to the results - I could have been earning ££££ by now.

Annie she's fairly sporty and enjoys rowing outside of school, and violin. She's a pretty good all rounder as I said and I'm not sure that helps. She wants to stick with her music education as she can see that it might be a potential way to earn some money (although not lots) en route to her actual job.

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!

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'd encourage anything to do with modern foreign languages - imo it's going to be the single most important factor in increasing your chances of finding a job in the next couple of decades. Having a couple of languages to a really high standard makes you so much more mobile professionally - you could work in other EU countries or elsewhere. This is going to be very important because for graduate jobs she will be competing against all EU graduates who can speak English well and who are prepared to move to the UK - that makes things a lot more competitive than they used to be. So if she likes travel anyway that seems quite a good fit.

I would say that it's important not to confuse the jobs that are "high status" or that people are impressed by with the jobs that give you the life that you want. And to a certain extent, yes, that means looking at how much you can earn, and what the work/life balance is like, and if the work style is what you want (e.g. how autonomous you get to be in your role). There are plenty of jobs that sound great but don't have a brilliant reality.

For example, law is not something I would encourage someone to go into because there has been a massive undersupply of training contracts for a while now. Firms are beginning to outsource things that were done by solicitors to support staff or even to their foreign branches. Pay will not be as high on average as it has been in the past. Similarly academia. I'm coming to the end of a PhD and am looking for jobs outside academia because previous generations of academics have pulled the ladder up behind them. Most people getting hired in the future will be on short term contracts, permanently. Only the very luckiest will find permanent positions.

I work in an international business. We work in 25 countries. All our business is done in English. Same in my previous business.

Lots of jobs at the EU etc for language speakers though. In practice though, very competitive and many people are bilingual from childhood so that I, stiff competition. Nevertheless those type of institutions are well worth a look

Fairphyliss has it spot on re law

Thanks for the heads up about Law. I was thinking specifically about intellectual property law which I presumed had a future.

I tend to think like you do givemeaclue about the stiff competition from people that are bilingual from childhood. No matter how well DD gets on with her French she will never be able to compete, a bit defeatist I know but probably true.

Phyllis your picture of academia is similar to mine. It's very insecure in terms of contracts to say the least but that actually suits some people - like me!

"curlew, sounds like your DS is well on his way to his dream job."

It's also a very effective way of shutting up well meaning grown ups who ask what he wants to do. Bit of a conversation stopper!

Intellectual property law is certainly a minefield that needs skilled people to negotiate it.

DH (who is a well paid computer boffin) knows a lot more of it than he has any wish to.

When he thinks he's got it straight he checks with their in house lawyer, who seems to work 8am to 8pm at least.