Supporting your teenagers with their career choices during National Careers Week and beyond Every parent wants the best for their children and in the current pandemic, you may be feeling concerned about your own child’s higher education and career planning, irrespective of their year group! At a time when everything seems put on hold, the internet can provide a wealth of information to help you facilitate your teen’s navigation into their career-decision making. Although this is not an exhaustive list of resources, here are a few you may wish to utilise with your teen.
Helping your child to understand their personality type There are many different job families out there, and the first step is to ensure that your child is aware of their own personality type. This is an important step in finding the right fit for both university courses and employment and can be a great starting point in understanding the potential careers they can aspire to. Get your child to try the Buzz Test. It’s a short, fun and interactive activity containing 16 personality types. Each type is matched to an animal and there are ideas for potential jobs and degree courses. It’s not set in stone (it’s only an online activity) and doesn’t compare to discussing career ideas with someone in person, but it’s a good place to start and helps generate ideas for career-decision making.
For further information, click here If your teen is in 6th form, get them to try the more grown up version called 16 Personalities here
Explore different career profiles
There are many different careers out there, and new ones are being created all the time. In fact, by the time your child graduates from university, there’ll be careers on offer that they may not have heard of yet. For a basic understanding of the kind of careers that are out there and the kind of qualifications and degrees that are required, try the following websites for an overview: BBC Bitesize
Career Pilot Follow this up by looking for live job descriptions to get an idea of the recruiting companies, skills, qualities, qualifications and salaries attributed to each role. It’s never too early to research!
Explore degree ideas and entry requirements Different schools have their own higher education search packages, but it’s a good habit to start looking to see what universities are looking for now. The UCAS website is where students will apply to university when the time comes, but in the meantime, it can be used as a search tool. There are many higher education courses listed here such as single honours degree courses (where one degree subject is studied) as well as joint/combined degrees (where 2 or more subjects are studied). The website also gives further information about higher education that makes for interesting and informative reading.
Your child can type in the degree course that interests them on the homepage and this will give an overview of the universities offering that specific degree and their entry requirements. You can also filter choices by region too. For further information, click here.
And finally… As it’s National Careers Week, check out the resources available here including the Parents’ Guide which will help you to support your teenagers in making informed choices. Understandably, it can be overwhelming with all the careers information available on the internet but these are good sources to start with. Do also approach your child’s school about their careers provision or any queries you may have about their next steps.
