Imagine your high school age son up late at night, in his bedroom with his desk light burning, reading a book on software design or motivating employees or robotics engineering or building construction or funding service-oriented nonprofits — just because he’s fascinated and wants to learn more.
Imagine your 10th grade daughter getting genuinely excited about learning — because you’ve helped her to get a glimpse of what she, personally, might love to do for a career someday.
This can happen for your son or daughter, if you make a way for him or her to do career direction work early on.
Today I’m going to give you a way to get quality career direction help for your 15 – 24-year-old son or daughter right now, this fall.
Here are 6 important things to know about career direction and teens:
1. This whole matter of career direction is very, very important to getting kids through college debt-free.
Students who have career direction early on choose college or technical school programs wisely. They study harder. They finish college or technical school faster. They jump into exciting paid internship and job shadowing opportunities years earlier than students who decide career by just drifting. Besides that, students who get career direction early on can save their parents thousands of dollars — by not making years-long expensive missteps into ill-advised college programs and majors.
2. If your son or daughter is 10th grade or older, I want him or her to take these three career assessments as soon as possible:
(I’ll explain an easy way to find these assessments and have them interpreted for you — just keep reading to the bottom of this post.)
- The Myers Briggs Type Indicator
- The Strong Interest Inventory
- The StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment. (The StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment costs less than $19 and anyone can take it anytime by purchasing it here.)
Once your child knows his or her personality type on the official, gold standard Myers Briggs Type Indicator (it’ll be a four letter code such as INTP or ESFJ), I’ll want both him and you to read the chapter on his particular personality type in the book Do What You Are by Paul D. Tieger, Barbara Barron, and Kelly Tieger. I recommend this book to every one of my consulting clients because it provides a huge number of possible career goals for a teen or an adult based on how his or her personality type thinks, works, and processes information.
3. If your child wonders what a certain career actually is or how much money it makes, do this.
Simply google the name of the career along with the initials “BLS.” You’ll instantly see a page of interesting information on that job, courtesy of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Just for fun, mom or dad, google your own job with the initials “BLS” right now.
4. No pressure. Just pick “four to explore.”
Once your child has completed the three assessments, sit down with him or her to look through the assessment results and his or her chapter in Do What You Are. Help him or her to find four interesting careers to explore.
No need to feel paralyzed by this decision. Your child can always change his or her mind later. No pressure!
5. Help your child to find an opportunity to “shadow” a person who does one of the coolest jobs he’s chosen.
Mom, Dad — your own LinkedIn.com network of contacts will be a great way to find people for your son or daughter to “shadow.”
You can read my free, helpful PDF on job shadowing here. (I do usually like kids to do job shadowing in the summer after 10th grade, it’s true — but if your child is past that now, that’s ok! It’s not too late!)
6. Lovingly tell your son these critically important words.
Ready? Here they are:
“Son, we’ll be glad to provide you free room and board after your high school graduation, as long as you’re enrolled in and making successful progress through a full time academic or job training program. Let’s take some time right now to do some thinking about what that might be!
Now, you and your child can get my personal help with this at a rock bottom cost.
I’ll be walking students step-by-step through this whole process in a career direction class this November, but space is extremely limited and the registration deadline is a firm November 5th. Here are the details!
UPCOMING CLASS: WHAT CAREER WOULD BE BEST FOR ME?
(For grades 10 and up)
How can you possibly pick a college or a technical school to attend after high school when you have no idea what you want to do with your life? That old outdated plan of “take random college classes to see what you’re interested in” hasn’t worked in years.
In this seminar you’ll use three psychometric assessments and the book Do What You Are to get a strong, exciting, energizing sense of what kind of career might be an excellent fit for you. You’ll get great ideas about what kind of college or technical school education would get you to that career goal as quickly and as inexpensively as possible.
It’s strongly recommended that a parent or other caring adult attend this class alongside students under the age of 24. Significant pre-work is required for this class. As soon as you register for this class, go online to mycareerassessmentsonline.com and click on “DEBT FREE COLLEGE.” Order the three assessments indicated there by two weeks before the class date. You will have a one hour telephone meeting with a CPP certified professional prior to the class date. Bring your printed results and a highlighter to the class with you. If you own a copy of the book Do What You Are, bring that to class with you as well. If you don’t own a copy, a book will be provided for your use during class.
Cost: $49 plus a psychometric assessment fee of $139 per student. Parents or other caring adults attend for $20 per person. Advance registration only. No late registration. No discounts.
Registration Cut-Off Date: November 5th
Location:
East Ridge High School
4200 Pioneer Dr
Woodbury, MN 55129
Date: Thursday, November 19th
Time: 6:00 – 8:30 pm
Click Here to Register
This class is not going to be broadly advertised because the class size is so small. The only way your friends will hear about it will be if you forward this blog post to them.
Would you like free, clear, step-by-step help getting your kids through college debt-free?
Subscribe to my weekly email newsletter using the form on this site, and then open it every single time it lands in your email inbox. For up-to-the-minute help for your individual situation, click on your child’s age in the “WHAT TO DO WHEN” section on this website.
What about you? Do you know any students who’ve done career direction work as young as 10th grade? What was the result afterward? Comment below, or LIKE Jeannie Burlowski Author on Facebook and let’s talk about it there. Do you have friends who are currently raising kids ages 15-25? SHARE this post on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin right now.
Who is Jeannie Burlowski?
Jeannie Burlowski is a full-time consultant, author, and conference speaker. She helps parents set their kids up to graduate college debt-free and move directly into careers they excel at and love. Her book LAUNCH: How to Get Your Kids Through College Debt Free and Into Jobs They Love Afterward is due out within months. You can find Jeannie’s free, clear, step-by-step help for parents in the “WHAT TO DO WHEN” section on this website. Follow her on Twitter @JBurlowski.
“We only got around to doing a fraction of what Jeannie tells people to do in the free help on her website, and we saved well over $50,000 on college costs. Our daughter earned a four year degree from an excellent private university at age 20, and she’s now in California happily working her dream job at Disney. Get to one of Jeannie’s live classes if you can. Buy a plane ticket if you have to!” — Liz and Tim Weatherhead, parents, Bloomington, MN