Career tools to guide teens

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A new email service has been launched to help teens make the right choices regarding their study and career options.

It's run by the Government's Career Services and is aimed at parents
and educators to help focus teens on making the right decisions.

Ross Jones, Career Services area manager central north, says today's teens are confronted with an array of decisions they will need help with.

"It's quite a complex world in terms of the choices and options that young people have to navigate.

"There are a lot of education and training options available to young people as they leave either school or are heading from a first job to do some more training."

The email service is a free newsletter called Career Edge that contains timely articles for adults to help teens plan their careers. Jones says the decisions teens make are crucial and poor choices can have significant costs and risks, particularly in our tight economy.

"There are all kind of reasons why young people need to be much more career-savvy these days in terms of making well-considered choices."

The Career Edge is aimed at those who work closely with young people, who can influence and support them.

"We have a social role, which is to foster the career development of all New Zealanders. By using the email newsletter-type approach, it's prompting career awareness in the community in a way that's affordable."

Topics from the first newsletter launched last month include:

*How to help a teen choose their school subjects for next year;

*Helping a teen beat exam stress;

*Knowing what your teen's career plans are;

*Concerns about a teen getting into tertiary study;

*How to find funding to support a teen while they study.

Previous generations would perhaps have chosen to become farmers, doctors, builders or teachers but teens today may take on more specialised roles such as systems test engineers, diversional therapists and hydrology technicians.

"As the training options get larger and larger as the opportunities for people become more diverse, then it's really important that people make the right choices.

"If they go into a choice of study that's not really right for them, the financial cost to the individual, institutions, government and to the country of someone making a wrong choice is actually quite significant."

The cost of spending the first year of university in the wrong field of study can be about $20,000 Jones says.

"It's quite an issue for families about some people making wrong choices or false starts, or going into a programme and not having really thought through the implications in terms of their lifestyle, work style and those sorts of things."

The taxpayer is also hurt by these false starts as the government invests in training institutions and workplace training. "[If] we're building capability in people that's not going to be actualised in their careers, that's a cost that goes nowhere."

It's a somewhat harsh message to give young people, which is why Career Services believes the new service will be helpful.

"The real motivation behind the e-newsletter concept is to really remind and prompt parents, caregivers and also those people who work with young people that now is the time to be talking to your young people about this topic."

Jones says teens need to take a hard look at their academic and personal strengths and be realistic.

"I don't believe in telling anyone 'you can't do that' but I think it's really important to say to people, 'Whatever your hopes and aspirations and dreams might be, lets check them out."'

Jones says parents and caregivers should start to have career discussions with their children at age 10 or 11.

"It's not in terms of what they want to do but in terms of what their strengths are."

He says strengths, not interests, are the determining factors to steer towards when deciding on a career.

"Interests tend to move around a lot more than strengths and innate abilities do. Over time, people's interests come and go a lot more than what their innate strengths are."

The e-newsletter is meant to foster conversations between young people and adults about the expectations and realities of working. Jones says people wait until the last minute far too often.

He cites "the number of students that [come to me] in November and say, 'Well, I just sat my last exams I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my degree. Can you help me now?"'

The new service is also meant to broaden young people's horizons.

"A lot of young people may not necessarily see possibilities around them on a day-to-day basis. Quite often young people will only see what they see outside the door in their immediate world. They'll perhaps only see the occupations that their parents and their families do."

Jones says he is reaching out to people who would perhaps not necessarily think to make a career choice. Young people might not be able to select a specific job that they want to do but can determine what types of fields they are good in. And many jobs of the future have not yet been invented, he says.

"Young people may not realise that maybe in five years time the workplace will look very different to what it looks like now."

The newsletter is also meant to drive traffic to the Career Services website. One tool the website offers visitors is called CareerQuest. It is a psychometric test that people can take to find out how their skills, interests and strengths will relate to job options, says Jones.

"Job areas and industries are backed up with a labour market comment around the prospects and the demand for skills and qualifications."

The site goes further with detailed salary information, prospects for career progression and working conditions. It features interviews with people who work in various jobs around New Zealand about the nature of their work. A helpline also provides additional information. People who need to speak to a career consultant can call AdviceLine on 0800 222 733.

Also, Career Services sometimes offers people face-to-face guidance.

"In various places we run targeted group workshops."

Jones says the website should be the first point of entry to Career Services. He says he is proud of what the website can deliver.

"I think it would be fair to say that if you have a look around the planet at other career-information websites, I think you'll find that this one is spectacular in terms of its content and its depth."

The site attracts nearly 3 million visits a year. "Every school in New Zealand ... would have our website pretty much embedded in their career education programme."

Contact David Maida at www.davidmaida.com

On the webhttp://www2.careers.govt.nz/careerquest.html