Welcome to my blog spot! I’m Vic Geary RCDP and I’m a qualified and Registered Career Development Professional, and part of the Future First team.
As we get closer to our conference (30 April), it seems fitting for my blog to address how you as careers leaders can ‘Harness the Power of Alumni’. To harness the power of something it’s important to be purposeful and focussed and one way that this could be done is to focus on the jobs that your students don’t already know about.
Many young people see themselves in one of just 10 jobs at the age of 30
Statistics within the OECD’s publication Dream Jobs? Teenagers’ Career Aspirations and the Future of Work – OECD show that, across all countries participating in PISA, “53% of girls and 47% of boys anticipate entering one of just 10 jobs by the age of 30” but most of your students will, at least at some point in their working lives, probably be in a job that they will never have heard of at this point! The top 10 varied between boys and girls but includes professions such as teachers, doctors, architects, nurses, psychologists, lawyers, journalists, hairdressers, engineers, and mechanics.
By contrast, a random search for jobs in a large UK city on a well-known job search website resulted in these as the first 10 results:
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- Inbound Sales Representative
- Head of DEI and Wellbeing
- Admissions Officer
- Passport and Citizenship Assistant
- Senior Buyer
- Underwriter
- Head of People Partnering
- Database Administrator
- Luxury Private Shopper
- 111 Health Advisor
I’d say it’s time to introduce your students to the fact that the world of work is much more varied than the 10-or-so job titles they already know!
Why not contact your alumni to try to find those who are in hard-to-guess jobs and run a ‘Guess my Job” panel in assembly or form time? Or even those who are in more ‘traditional’ job roles now, ask them to share their journey … it’s highly likely that they will have had some interesting job titles along the way!
What is work like?
A shocked “Really??!” from a student of mine when a visiting speaker mentioned that in their office the dress code was casual and they were allowed to bring their dogs to work made me realise that secondary school students are so used to their uniform, the school bells, and the rules they must follow that they really struggle to envision an environment that’s different but where you’re still expected to work! Your alumni can really get involved with this key piece of careers education … HOW you go to work! This type of activity is best delivered at a work place e.g. on a workplace safari where the employer arranges for small groups of students to visit different functions of a business for a day. For example, they could visit a factory but visit the engineers, quality control, operations management, marketing, finance, HR … there the students can see that there are different dress codes, diverse types of work, varied ways of communicating within each function. This is useful learning for all but particularly important for neurodiverse students as they are more likely to struggle with imagining what ‘work’ looks like.
With a strong alumni network, all these horizon-broadening and eye-opening experiences are possible for you to create for your students! How exciting!
Want to know more?
I’d love to hear from you to understand what other topics you would like me to focus on in the coming months. Whether further blogs, opportunities to meet ‘virtually’ to discuss topics or webinars: contact the Future First team at info@futurefirst.org.uk.
