A Plan for Career Exploration

spring 2024/Whitney Cranford Crowell

Most teens have two criteria when it comes to thinking about a future career: 1. Will it be fun? and 2. Will it make me a lot of money? And truthfully, these are often the top criteria for parents as well. While we may not frame it as crassly as that, most of us as parents want, above all, to see our kids happy and well provided for. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but happiness and material provision take different forms for every individual, and our children are no exception. Helping them to define those terms for themselves as they take baby steps toward adulthood can be one of the most challenging aspects of parenting. I developed this plan for career exploration for my own teens, and we have found it very effective as a first pass at narrowing down choices.

You can approach this type of study in whatever way suits you and your student. This plan can be done in a few weeks over summer break or expanded to fill an entire high school semester. Your teen may prefer to work independently, or you may find it more productive to do many of the research and thought experiments together.

However you decide to approach it, I encourage you to find ways to stay engaged with your student throughout this study. These conversations should be formed and informed by your family’s particular values and your insights into your child’s personality. And even though your teen may be prickly, she does value and want your guidance—especially on a topic of this magnitude. Most teens are anxious about launching into the adult world, even if they appear indifferent or act as though they have it all figured out. Don’t miss this opportunity to guide your teen and get to know her in a new way! Learning about the life she envisions for herself will equip you to equip her to build it while also giving you a deeper appreciation for your unique and precious child. 

The Career Journal
I highly recommend having your student keep a journal throughout the career exploration process. While this can be a place for reflection—and some students will find it an excellent way to explore their hopes and dreams for the future—it can also be more utilitarian in nature. The career journal is simply a place to record the information you and your student uncover as you conduct the activities outlined below. It can take any form that works for your teen, from a handwritten diary to an audio journal.

Step One: Start the Conversation
First and foremost, forging a path for yourself requires an introspection that might be new and even scary to your teen. It’s important to dialogue with him to move him beyond thinking in terms of “just a job” and towards his broader vision for his life. Try asking some of the following to get your student’s wheels turning:

• What are your favorite subjects in school? Which do you think you’re best at?
• What are your hobbies and interests? What skills have you developed through your hobbies or other activities? How could those be useful in a career setting?
• What are some of your best personal traits? How would others describe you?
• What sort of work environment appeals to you?
  • Do you prefer working with others, working independently, or something in between?
  • Do you like a fast-paced environment with lots of change and excitement, or are security and stability more your style?
  • Do you want to work indoors or outdoors? On your feet or behind a desk?
  • Is a traditional schedule (Monday-Friday, 9-5) more your speed, or would you consider (or prefer) something else?
  • Do you want to travel for work? Work from home?
  • Do you want to be your own boss? Boss other people? Just be a team player?
• What kind of lifestyle do you envision for yourself?
  • Do you want to live in the city, the country, the suburbs?
  • Is living close to family and friends important to you, or are you willing to relocate?
  • Do you want to be married? Have children? Do you envision a particular life for them, for example, homeschooling your children, being/providing for a stay-at-home parent?
  • Do you need flexibility? For example, do you want to be able to travel while working, work part-time, or even step away from the workforce for a time to raise a family?
  • What kind of income would you need to support this lifestyle? Make sure to consider the cost of living in the area where you would like to end up, which may be different from where you live now.

If possible, encourage your teen to write about these questions in his career journal first, or at least spend some time thinking about them before your discussion. You want to guide his thinking, but this is his life, and the answers must ultimately come from him. When you discuss these topics, let your teen talk, but ask lots of follow-up questions. When in doubt, “Why?” can be a very effective question.

Step Two: Assess Interests
Taking an interest assessment can be helpful, especially for students who may have a hard time seeing their own strengths and talents. There are many free online career interest tools; I like the Career Interest Assessment at careeronestop.org (under Toolkit) and the O*NET Interest Profiler at mynextmove.org. While these aren’t scientific tools, they can quickly and easily help identify the traits unique to your teen and how those may be marketable.

After taking the assessments, have your teen write in his journal and/or discuss some of the following:

• Which career(s) did the assessments indicate might be a good fit for you? Do you agree or disagree? Why?
• Were there any results that surprised you?
• Were there any major discrepancies between the results of the two assessments?

Step Three: Narrow the Field
Once your student has a general idea of her talents, interests, and preferences, she can look at the career fields that might suit her best. One of my favorite resources for this is Careers: The Ultimate Guide to Planning Your Future by DK Publishing, which organizes various careers by industry and provides an infographic-style snapshot of each. Your student can thumb through the book (no need to read every entry in detail), looking at the jobs listed. If one piques her curiosity, have her note it in her career journal, along with what appeals to her about that job and—just as important—anything that is unappealing. When she’s finished, she should review her notes and look for common threads: Maybe the jobs she has chosen all require a certain skill set (e.g., creativity, working with people), or perhaps they will provide the lifestyle she wants. The goal is not to pick a career but to think more about the attributes her ideal career would have.

I highly recommend buying a copy of the DK book, especially if you have multiple children to guide through the career exploration process. But if you choose not to, or it’s not available through your local library, Khan Academy has a careers unit that can serve a similar purpose.

Step Four: Conduct Career Research
By this point, your student should have an idea of some career fields that might be a fit, or at least some that definitely are not! Have him select his top three fields to research further. For each field, he should list one to three specific career options that fall under that category. These can come from the DK book, his own ideas, or a Google search. Even if he plans on attending college, be sure he includes at least one job that does not require more than a two-year degree in each field. It’s best to remain open-minded at this stage. He may be surprised!

Now he can research each career option on his list by looking them up in the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, available at bls.gov/ooh. For each one, make a chart in his career journal that includes the following:

• What does someone in this career do on a daily basis?
• What kind of education is necessary for this career?
• Is any on-the-job training required for employment or advancement (e.g., apprenticeship, certification)?
• What is the median pay?
• How many jobs are currently available?
• What is the growth outlook?
• What kind of lifestyle could this career provide?
• List at least three alternative careers that are related to this one. (You may have to do some additional research. For example, interest in becoming a baseball player could lead to a career in sports medicine, coaching, manufacturing, or counseling, as well as becoming a team owner, scout, sportscaster, journalist, photographer, publicist, statistician, groundskeeper, recreational director, sporting goods store owner, or personal trainer. Be creative!)

Step Five: Make a Plan
In this final step, your student will choose one career to research further. She is not choosing a career for herself. However, the job she researches now may end up being the one she chooses later. The hope is that the previous steps have led her to an option that she finds intriguing, perhaps one she’d not considered before. But the point of this step is to help her get a feel for the real-world preparation she will need to pursue a career—invaluable information when it comes to actually selecting a career path when her time, effort, and money will need to pay a return worthy of her investment.

She can begin her research by reading about or watching a video about someone who has the career she’s chosen. Better yet, help her to find someone she can interview via email, phone, or in person. In her career journal, have her write the following:

• How did this person become interested in this career?
• What training did they receive?
• How long have they been in the career?
• What is their job description—what do they do on a daily basis?
• What advice would they give to someone considering this career?

Lastly, have her write up the plan she would follow if she pursued this career. Her plan might include:

• Courses to study in high school to prepare for this career.
• Post-high school education/training needed, where to get it, how much it will cost, and how to finance it. For example, how long will it take to pay off student debt if making an average salary?
• Skills needed and ideas for developing them.
• Character traits needed and ideas for developing them.
• Volunteer work, internships, or job shadowing options to learn more about and prepare for this career.

This last step is the hardest for many students. Planning can seem daunting to a young person with limited real-world experience. Give as much assistance as needed. Help your teen to brainstorm things she can do now to prepare herself for success in the future. Because she did the work of identifying her interests, talents, and desires upfront, many of the skills and character traits needed for this job should also serve her well in any other career field she eventually chooses, so following her plan will not be a waste even if she chooses another path.

When Should I Start Career Exploration?
I usually advise parents to begin exploring career options around the age of fourteen or fifteen (typically eighth or ninth grades). While some children have a strong sense of their future vocation much earlier, most will not have a deep enough understanding of their own personalities, interests, and desires to begin to make steps toward adult decisions before their mid-teens. And many will continue to refine these ideas well into their teens and even beyond high school graduation. Your goal here is to open the conversation, not end it. Starting just before or as you begin high school-level work will allow you as the parent-educator to guide your child’s high school studies with an eye toward future goals. Knowing whether your student is leaning towards the humanities, STEM, a trade, or something else can better equip you to formulate a high school plan that prepares him or her while still providing a well-rounded education and allowing plenty of time to explore and find new interests. (For a step-by-step guide to high school planning, see my article “How to Make a Four-Year Plan for High School” in the fall 2022 issue of GREENHOUSE.)

Most of all, remember that you are not trying to lock your young teen into a career for the next fifty years—and it’s important that she understands this! Many things will change as she travels the road of life, and she doesn’t have to prepare for them all right now. She merely needs to be able to take the next step—and many “next steps” can ultimately lead her to her desired destination. Now that she knows how to think through any option, she’s well-equipped to make good decisions as she needs to make them.

Whitney Cranford Crowell knew she’d reached peak homeschooling when she bought a custom nine-foot by six-foot bookcase with a matching ladder and still didn’t have room for all the books. She lives in her childhood home outside High Point with her husband of twenty-three years and their twelve-year-old son. Their daughter and first homeschool graduate is a National Merit Scholar at the University of Alabama. Whitney can be reached at whitneycrowell@gmail.com.