Category Archives: Teen Career Exploration

This blog is for any high school student, teenager, their parents, school counselors or career coaches who provide services to high school students. We focus on the high school student mostly. But if you are a college student and haven’t ever paused to do some serious self reflection and career exploration based on your true talents you might want to read this blog and visit us at Success Discoveries. This blog is a supplement to the Career Coaching for Students™ program found at www.successdiscoveries.com/products/ccfs.
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Dr. Phil’s Sweet 16 Tips for Success – for High School and College Students

Posted on March 13, 2013 | 5 comments

Dr. Phil Sweet 16 Life Rules on The DoctorsDr. Phil McGraw shares part of his formula for success with “The Sweet 16,” featured in his new book, Life Code: The New Rules for Winning in the Real World. He makes the point in the promo piece on The Doctors television show that success requires living authentically through these 16 rules. I’ve created a matrix of these Sweet 16 with critical soft skills for success that we introduce and coach on in the Career Coaching for Students program. These are skills that are aligned with and critical to teens and college students creating a successful launch from child to adult and being over-the-top happy in career and life. The two lists are independent of each other.

Dr. Phil McGrawFor college students, the heat is high enough to hold their attention on this subject – if it is offered as part of a college freshman seminar or provided proactively by the family as part of a personal career coaching program. For high school students, the ability to internalize these 16 life rules in order to leverage the opportunity to explore and plan for a career that is ideal for them is a tough challenge. However, some students are doing this and reaping the rewards in a big way. Dr. Phil’s Sweet 16 and the Life Skills for Students offered in the Career Coaching for Students program are both critically relevant for those wanting to experience success in life and work.

“I have studied success all of my life and I found that success leaves clues,” Dr. Phil says. “There is a formula for success and I’ve boiled it down to what I call The Sweet 16.”

The first column displays Dr. Phil’s Sweet 16 Rules. We’ve listed 16 “Life Skills for Students” that are key to success. Each of Dr. Phil’s rules align nicely to our Life Skills for Students content.

Dr. Phil’s Sweet 16 Rules for Success

 Life Skills for Students™
1 Have a defined “image” and never go out of character.
You must know both yourself and how to present yourself.		 Interpersonal Skills
Effectively communicating, building rapport and relating well to all kinds of people requires knowing yourself.
2  Create a perception of uniqueness.
Choose to define your image so that you distinguish yourself from anyone else in the world.		 Creativity and Innovation
Adopting traditional or devising new approaches, concepts, methods, modes, designs, processes, technologies and/or systems helps to distinguish you.
3 Play “big,” not just long.
Playing big is different than playing long because even reliable and competent people that play long seldom win big, if at all.		 Proactive Thinking
The capacity to think ahead in order to realistically evaluate the consequences of current actions, processes and decisions shows you are thinking big.
4 Learn to claim and accept praise, and acknowledge it in a gracious way, but do accept it.
The goal is to get noticed and acknowledged for who you are and what you do.		 Decision Making
Utilizing effective processes to make decisions will be one of the biggest generators of praise.
5  Become “essential.”
If you want to succeed in any situation, it is important to be needed and good to be relied upon.		 Initiative
The compelling desire to get into the flow of work in order to accomplish the vision and complete the goal makes you essential.
6 Know your real currency.
Don’t waste time working for what you don’t want.		 Self Management
The ability to prioritize and complete tasks in order to deliver desired outcomes within allotted time frames is valued like gold by your employer/boss but will also help you create self-worth. Also see Goal Orientation below.
7 Always, always have a plan.
If you want to achieve a sustained measure of success in any area of your life, you need a specific plan that begins with identifying what you want.		 Planning and Organizing
Utilizing logical, systematic and orderly work procedures to meet objectives.
8 Keep things “close to the vest.”
To be interesting you have to maintain a certain degree of mystery, because it gives you a degree of mastery.		 Project and Goal Focus
The capacity to concentrate one’s full attention on the project or goal at hand, regardless of distractions or difficulties gives enables your mind to discipline itself.
9 Always be in investigatory mode.
You have to constantly be gathering relevant information that may empower you to do and achieve what you desire.		 Continuous Learning
Check this module out by clicking on the link. Taking initiative in learning and implementing new concepts, technologies and/or methods. Let others be part of the source of your learning.
10 Must “stretch” and behave your way to success, even if it feels like “fake it until you make it.”
Have confidence and be bold enough to stretch yourself, scramble to close the gap if one exists, and grow into new opportunities.		 Flexibility
The ability to readily modify, respond to and integrate change with minimal personal resistance.
11 Always keep your options open.
It is important to always leave yourself a face-saving way out.		 Goal Orientation
Energetically focus your efforts on meeting your personal goals. Create a personal mission statement. Having a longer-term vision for yourself makes seeing the value of different options easier.
12 Always master the system and figure a way to make it work for you.
You can gain distinct advantage if you know the game better than anybody else.		 Problem Solving
The ability to identify key components of the problem, possible solutions and the action plan to obtain the desired result.
13 Create a passionate nucleus of supporters.
Surround yourself with people who share your passion and vision, and support your pursuit of your goals.		 Persistence
The capacity to steadily pursue any project or goal that a person is committed to in spite of difficulty, opposition or discouragement. Distance yourself emotionally from those that are naysayers to your goals.
14 Deal only with the truth.
You must resolve to never fail to acknowledge if you have a problem or are in some kind of toxic situation that is draining your life energy.		 Personal Accountability
The capacity to take responsibility for one’s own actions, conduct, obligations and decisions without excuses. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone fails at some point. Some believe failing is the best way to learn – as long as you try again. Don’t fear owning your mistakes with others.
15 Recognize and use the ego and greed of others to create a path to success.
If you want acceptance and to be heard and well-regarded, you can create receptivity by being sensitive to your listener’s ego.		 Futuristic Thinking
Imagining, envisioning, projecting and/or predicting what has not been realized yet. Others’ egos are not relevant to your long-term goals but may be valuable for your current situation.
16 Pick your battles and never let your opponent have control.
Never put yourself in an untenable position by picking a battle that you don’t need to fight and don’t know with great certainty that you can win.		 Persuading Others
The capacity to influentially present one’s positions, opinions, feelings or views to others in such a way that they will listen and adopt the same view. Knowing others better than they know themselves puts you in control.

Carl Nielson is an organizational development consultant, professional career and executive/leadership coach and creator of the nationally recognized program Career Coaching for Students™ . Career Coaching for Students is available as a district-wide high school program, college program and in group and on-one-one offerings through certified career coaches throughout the United States, Canada and other countries. Contact Carl Nielson at carl@successdiscoveries.com or call 972-346-2892 to discuss specific needs. Or visit us at http://www.careercoachingforstudents.net

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Freshman Year: The Big Picture by guest blogger Jennifer Karan, Executive Director, SAT Program, College Board

Posted on January 18, 2013 | Leave a comment

Happy TeensAs a former English teacher and Dean of Students (9th and 10th grade), I know that there are few things as daunting, mysterious and exciting to a teenager than freshman year of high school. It’s a whole new world: the hallways are foreign and at larger schools, students sometimes feel as though they need a GPS to get from class to class; the upperclassmen seem so much older and are brimming with a glowing confidence; teacher expectations and homework may require substantial adjustment. And college seems like a distant point on the horizon.

Part of the trepidation may be what adults would understand as not being able to see the forest for the trees. However, when a student is able to see how the various academic courses, opportunities in arts and athletics and programs that develop other interests (the school paper, community service or a part-time job) that form the Big Picture, he or she is able to navigate this terrain successfully, with greater purpose and enjoyment.

high school students see the big picture and plan carrersAn excellent first step towards realizing this Big Picture is to encourage a student to make an appointment with a school counselor early on. Where access to a counselor is difficult, students can approach a trusted teacher of a favorite subject. If a student is willing to share information with this new advisor, he or she can help that student make sure he taking the right classes to graduate on time and taking the types of classes colleges are looking for. Students should discuss favorite subjects to learn about additional opportunities as well as to get the necessary help with the more intimidating courses before it’s too late. Students can even share hobbies as well as aspirations; a counselor or advisor can help find extracurricular activities to help develop these interests.

Big Future, sponsored by the College Board, is an incredibly useful tool in helping students of all ages contemplate and understand what it takes to get to the college – or major – of their dreams. Starting early can help high school freshmen plan an academic path and start to understand the financial aid process, including scholarships and merit aid. It also provides information on how to make high school count, things to discuss with a counselor, planning college visits and other avenues to success.

Becoming aware of all the available resources and understanding how the decisions made now will offer benefits later on is one way to start the planning process. Actively utilizing those resources and building a unique and representative academic and extracurricular profile puts students on track for the Big Picture: showing colleges who they really are.

Career Coaching for Students is the solutionCareer Coaching for Students™ offers high school students the opportunity to develop a clear picture of self and their future that lifts self-esteem, increases academic performance and helps the family avoid unnecessary costs of changing majors and extending college due to changes in direction. Student Resource Central, the most comprehensive resource portal for career exploration and educational strategy research includes Big Future by College Board among its recommended resources. Freshman spring semester is the ideal time to take part in the Career Coaching for Students program. For more information, visit the website at http://www.careercoachingforstudents.net.

About the SAT Test

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Informational Interviews are There for the Asking

Posted on August 11, 2012 | Leave a comment

For students contemplating career direction, it can be hard to know how happy you’ll be in a new job or industry. Find out more about the career you are interested in by finding three to five people who are doing the kind of work you’re interested in. Contact them to set up informational interviews. If you don’t know anyone, find people through your parent’s friends and your friend’s parents or use social media (LinkedIn is the largest networking site).

Don’t feel timid about contacting someone. People are usually flattered when you ask for their opinions, and most enjoy talking about what they do. For college students, you can always offer to take the contact to lunch to sweeten the pot. If you are a high school student, arrange to meet them at their office or place of work and be prompt.

Before the meeting, prepare a list of questions you’d like to ask the interviewee. These may range from “What do you like most about your work?” to “What’s an average day like for you?” to “What does someone have to do to get ahead in your field?”

In the Career Coaching for Students program, we have a set of 18 interview questions you can use. We prepare the students by having a “guest” come in to be interviewed by the students. Having the students see first hand how simple and enjoyable the dialogue can be with a complete stranger prepares and motivates students to leverage this strategy. The pay back for moving outside your comfort zone to pursue and do informational interviews will be significant. You might even be offered the opportunity to job shadow for a day or land a summer job. Wouldn’t that be worth it.

Carl Nielson is an organizational development consultant, professional career and executive/leadership coach and creator of the nationally recognized program Career Coaching for Students™ . Career Coaching for Students is available as a district-wide high school program and in group and on-one-one offerings through certified career coaches throughout the United States, Canada and other countries. Contact Carl Nielson at carl@successdiscoveries.com or call 972-346-2892 to discuss specific needs. Or visit us at http://www.careercoachingforstudents.net

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Why You Will Fail

Posted on August 11, 2012 | Leave a comment

Larry Smith is a different kind of inspirational speaker. His presentation on TEDx is so entertaining and insightful I felt compelled to post it on my blog. If you are a parent, please watch the video. If you are a student, please watch the video. If you watch the video, share comments here.

Throughout his three-decade career at the University of Waterloo, Larry Smith has inspired legions of students to take up the mantle of economics with his passionate and homespun tales of economic wizardry. A renowned story-teller, teacher and youth leadership champion, Larry has also coached and mentored countless numbers of students on start-up business management and career development strategies.

Having taught introductory microeconomics, macroeconomics and entrepreneurship classes, he recently celebrated assigning his 29,000th grade earlier this year.

Recipient of the Distinguished Teacher Award, Larry has also coached several of his former students to help them position and develop their businesses, the most famous of which is Research in Motion (RIM), maker of the revolutionary BlackBerry wireless mobile smartphone. Larry also sits on the advisory panels of start-ups to provide his guidance on financing and negotiation with investors and venture capitalists.

Watch the presentation on TEDx.

Carl Nielson is an organizational development consultant, professional career and executive/leadership coach and creator of the nationally recognized program Career Coaching for Students™ . Career Coaching for Students is available as a district-wide high school program and in group and on-one-one offerings through certified career coaches throughout the United States, Canada and other countries. Contact Carl Nielson at carl@successdiscoveries.com or call 972-346-2892 to discuss specific needs. Or visit us at http://www.careercoachingforstudents.net

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Choosing and Changing Majors: Status Quo or A New Standard?

Posted on July 8, 2012 | Leave a comment

The following graphic is from The College Board. We’ll start the discussion here.Is Changing Majors OK?

From the quote in the green bubble, “It’s okay to change your plans even if it means changing your major.” Well, yes, if you find yourself going in the wrong direction, change direction. But The College Board position, and that of most colleges and universities, is that changing majors multiple times to “find yourself” is okay. It isn’t. What it tells me is that the student didn’t do the work to determine a career path prior to showing up at college.

Many colleges and universities report the statistics that support the 2005 article by MSNBC.com that indecision about what major to choose can prove very expensive.  According to Dr. Fritz Grupe, founder of majors.com, eighty percent of college-bound graduating high school students have yet to choose a major before arriving on campus.

With tuition averaging $18,000 or higher in 2012-2013 at public universities, and much higher at private universities, indecisiveness can drain college savings accounts as students restart course sequences or transfer schools – losing credits in the process. Ultimately the result is that the student extends their college days beyond the four years parents planned to finance.

According to College Board, five- and  six-year students are not uncommon. Roughly 40% of those who start a four-year degree program still have not earned one after year six!

There are a variety of good reasons for dragging a college career into its fifth and sixth years—from taking time off for foreign study, to taking advantage of internships and co-ops or needing to balance academics with part-time employment to pay tuition. But changing majors is the one thing that drives up an education’s cost while potentially driving down a student’s self-esteem. It is also the easiest to avoid.

Bad Advice?

There are many (too many) assessments that aren’t valid and reliable. There are also “exercises” that professional counselors recommend if you don’t have access to professional tools such as valid and reliable assessments.

Kate Brooks, director of liberal arts career services at the University of Texas at Austin, thinks surveys can help focus a student’s attention on potential courses of study but she warns about the the students tendency to apply the results too inflexibly. “Often a student will say, ‘the test says I should be a florist, so that’s what I have to be,’” she says. A valid and reliable assessment and process doesn’t result in one career choice. A student that has that belief wasn’t counseled properly and was most likely not using a valid and reliable assessment instrument.

“Nationally, we see statistics quoted that as many as 80% of all college students change their major or that the average college student changes his/her major an average of 3-5 times. If you were able to count how many times students change their mind about what they want to do after graduation, it would be much higher. “
University of Missouri • MU Career Center, 2010
Student Success Center

Rather than properly designed, validated and reliable assessments, Brooks favors an exercise to help undecideds identify and translate interests into majors and eventually careers they will succeed in and enjoy.

She sends students to the nearest Barnes & Noble to browse the magazine racks. They are instructed to buy the three magazines they find most interesting. “We then discuss what prompted them to buy those magazines. It may be they chose Newsweek because they are interested in current events and politics. Or possibly there was an article in ESPN about nutritional sports bars. We talk about how pursuing chemistry could lead them to create a better bar or sports drink. Or maybe it is the marketing aspect that appeals to them — the ads. The point is to help them understand what things excite them and what careers are connected to those things, and which majors would lead them to those careers,” explains Brooks.

That exercise is wonderful but too simplistic. Choosing a career and the best major for that career direction is a little more complicated than that.

Tips for helping your student choose major

What can parents do to help their children get through college in a timely fashion while staying passionate about their choice of major? Here are some suggestions I think are worthy of considering:

  • Refrain from pressuring children into making quick choices or pursuing majors associated with high income professions. Not everyone should or can be a doctor or a lawyer.
  • Focus attention on pursuing courses of interest based on a career direction, even if the immediate relationship to a major or career is not obvious.
  • Double-majoring is a great way to keep opportunities open. With good planning in high school, double-majoring is not only very doable, it may very well be more interesting and provide an extra level of motivation and self esteem.
  • Encourage participation in job shadowing — going to work with people to see what their jobs actually entail and asking people they meet how they got into their careers. While in high school, interview people in the career of interest that are passionate and successful. Parents can help set this up.
  • If they do enter school undecided, engage in a career coaching program that provides professional-grade (highly valid and reliable) assessments and a process that leads to clarity and good decisions. It doesn’t hurt that the program will also assist in a broader sense of creating success across the bigger picture of life.
  • Refrain from giving advice based on the job market of twenty-some years ago or the “parent ego”. Today’s employers need a different kind of worker and favor different degrees. Many parents see their own career as a great direction for their son or daughter. Genetics may have played a part in creating that awesome son or daughter but choosing a career is a highly individualized event.
  • Urge them to take full advantage of campus advisory services to avoid floundering, shifting from one course of study to the next, and prolonging their dissatisfaction and their academic careers. While I am generally strongly negative in my bias about college advisory competencies when it comes to assisting students in choosing a career direction and then matching potentials majors for that career, if you are taking any of the other advice above, this may not be necessary but it is usually the first option. students rely on and is the one option with the greatest gap between expectation of value and actual value. Just keep in mind, you might be told to go to the local magazine store to find your career.
  • Help them understand that a major is not a career. There are multiple paths to most careers, just as there are multiple careers that can be had from a single major. Encourage them to explore their options. Having a career direction is much more powerful than choosing a major.
  • Help them prepare academically before arriving at college to avoid spending their high-priced time on remedial or review classes.
  • If a child is undecided, consider seeking out a college with the resources to acquaint them with all the options to make a well-founded decision. Not all schools have or emphasize such programs.
  • Understand that the student-to-counselor ratio averages 450-to-1 nationally at the high school level. Do not rely on high school counselors to guide children through the exercise of choosing a major.

However they get there, encouraging children to think through their career interests before choosing a school or program can help them avoid future frustration, academic let-down or feelings of failure. It is also key to helping them graduate in four years and move into their ‘real’ lives before they out-spend their college savings accounts.

A more up-to-date and informative article is available.

2015 national webinar to be held in July for career exploration and planning that leads to choosing a major

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Parents Guide to Career Exploration and Planning

Posted on June 8, 2012 | 4 comments

It isn’t possible for every high school student to benefit from the Career Coaching for Student program (maybe some day). If it were, you’d be sure to receive assistance in all of the areas listed in this article and your teen would be on solid footing for the path ahead. Short of that honorable goal of serving every student, the following ideas are for parents of incoming high school students and any teen ready to consider and explore their future.Happy Teens

Parents are a teens primary counselor. As much as teachers, school counselors and other professionals try, parents play a crucial role in drawing a study plan and shaping the career direction and future of their children. Entry into high school is the time parents need to acquire knowledge about educational options, objectively understand their teens interests and skill sets and “parent” them through the exploration and decision-making process. Decision making doesn’t have to mean “choose” a career while in high school. Decision making needs to be focused on strategic direction. That may result in a career decision or it may set the student on an informed path to explore and evaluate the best potential opportunities that lead to happiness and success.  Either way, a good career choice will be made.

Why parents’ guidance is important for student career exploration

  1. Because parents have rich knowledge and experience. The teen’s interests and talents may be very different from a parents, however, the parent has the knowledge and experience to bring greater wisdom to the process.
  2. Many students choose their school or college of study after a brief, mostly subjective look at a few choices, without research and due diligence, often times going by just the hearsay. In this situation, parents can encourage their teen to gather all relevant information to make a more informed choice, considering both the short- and long-term benefits and prospects.

How parents can help in career selection

  1. A parent’s attitude matters a great deal! Stay positive and focused on a future of success. The work place today is always changing and may seem scary. Don’t make the past seem perfect and the future terrifying. Encourage your teen to develop a positive attitude and learn about a variety of industries. Many career choices can be applied in diverse industries which present very different experiences.
  2. Do not shoot down ideas that your children may come up with on their educational and career choices. If you react negatively, it will likely shut down or reduce the communication process. Keep the lines open as you encourage information gathering and informed choices rather than “your” choices.
  3. Jump on opportunities. Informal discussions about the world of work with your teen can be productive. Current news and websites like www.ted.com can be a catalyst to a rich discussion.
  4. Provide guidance and blind encouragement. Do not impose your ideas against theirs. Your goal is to help your children find their own way based on their interests and skills and not follow your ideas and interests, which could prove counter-productive. By discussing interests, dreams and goals, you can get to know your children better, which will help you guide them.
  5. Encourage your teen to set goals. By starting early with goal setting and action planning, simple and rewarding goals will lead to extremely valuable skills for life and more consistent achievement of goals as an adult.
  6. Be practical and realistic in your approach but don’t assume something isn’t possible. Examine and find out whether their interests are genuine, or mere aspirations influenced by external forces.
  7. Encourage your child to explore their options through work experience and by talking to people in occupations that interest them. Visits to relevant businesses will help. Putting your teen in contact with those in a career of interest is extremely valuable. Meeting multiple people to gain “inside” career information can be more valuable than a summer job.
  8. Let your teen identify and select their area of interest. Parents can help students to identify the broad area of work that interests them, what sort of environment they would like to work in and then link it to their skills, interests, abilities and values. Be wary of popular assessments used for students. Many are not effective and can create confusion. Their validity and reliability may also be questionable.

How to begin

1. The best way to begin career exploration with your children is by talking about your own career. What do you do in your job. What decisions did you make that led you to this point in your career. Teens aren’t always overly interested when parents begin to share their wisdom with them. Be patient. When it comes to “telling”, asking questions more often is a better strategy for opening the door to rich discussions. Discuss a variety of occupations that you observe in everyday life and what those jobs may involve.

2. Emphasize personal accountability and self management. These are two critical skills consistently found in highly successful people – regardless of what career they choose to follow.

THE ACTION PLAN

The career decision-making process described below includes activities that can begin pre-high school and go through high school and post-secondary education.

Action 1 – Enable self-awareness through valid and reliable assessments. When it comes to assessments, start with yourself. Evaluate the assessment administration experience and the results.

Action 2 – You and your teen may also want to consider lifestyle implications and the overall impact that lifestyle preferences will have on career choice. For instance, will the job require irregular hours? Will the salary support the lifestyle your child wants? How much education does the occupation require vs the desire for continuing education? It’s important for your child to understand the relationship between lifestyle, personal preferences, occupational choice, and educational pursuits. Help your children understand and balance the difference between wants and needs.

Action 3 – Help your teen stay focused on career exploration.
Help your child to explore a variety of options with the goal of narrowing those options to a manageable few. Most students want to look at college choices first, major second and career third. Help them avoid that mistake.

Action 4 – Evaluate educational strategies that support a career direction. Evaluate educational options before looking at college choices. Schools vary greatly in their reputation for different areas of study. The best employers know which schools are at the top for a subject and which are not.

Action 5 – Research school choices based on career direction and desired post-secondary education. No school has everything for everyone. Even the most prestigious schools such as Harvard might not be the best school for what your teen is interested in. Choosing a college or university takes a little work.

Action 6 – Make choices based on quality information. Encourage your child to explore a variety of career areas, before making a choice. The economy, demographics, and technology will continue to change the workplace. Some jobs become obsolete while other new jobs emerge. Some occupations may maintain the same title, but they may change or evolve so drastically that they no longer resemble what they were a decade earlier. As the workplace continues to change, it will be more important to focus on personal soft skills and how they can be applied. Some soft skills are more important than others depending on the career. Decision making has been identified as one of the most important soft skills required for career success. It has also been identified as the weakest of soft skills of incoming Freshmen in college.

Action 7 – Create an action plan

Planning is much easier to do when a passionate future view exists. The passionate future view serves to motivate your teen to take challenging courses.

Action 8 – Begin planning for the expense of college. Motivation goes up when a teen sees that excellent grades will pay off in significant scholarship money and improved odds of being accepted to their first school of choice. Don’t think you can afford the most expensive colleges and universities? Explore all options available to get scholarships, financial aid, fellowships and interest free students loans. Why? Many of the scholarships will be based on achievement and required courses through the high school years. Many students of lower income families are provided significant financial support.

Action 9 – Take action. Encourage your child to stick with a rigorous school curriculum to build a strong foundation in math, reading, writing, computer skills, and science. The stronger the foundation, the more career options will be available later in life.

Action 10 – Review and revise. As your child matures and gains more knowledge and experience, his/her interests may change.

Course selection in high school will determine what opportunities are presented and the available course of action after graduation. For instance, if your child wants to go to college and she/he hasn’t taken the required advanced level courses, remedial courses may be necessary.

Help your child to stay on target by taking the necessary courses. Remember that all plans should be flexible in case your child wants to change some of the goals she/he set earlier on.

It is your child’s future, not yours! It is your role to separate your innermost desires and wishes from that of your child. Help them reach their own dreams.

Carl Nielson is an organizational development consultant, professional career and executive/leadership coach and creator of the nationally recognized program Career Coaching for Students™ . Career Coaching for Students is available as a district-wide high school program and in group and on-one-one offerings through certified career coaches throughout the United States, Canada and other countries. Contact Carl Nielson at carl@successdiscoveries.com or call 972-346-2892 to discuss specific needs. Or visit us at http://www.careercoachingforstudents.net

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New College Grad Survey Finds High Hopes for First Job

Posted on April 22, 2012 | Leave a comment

Reposted from Workforce Online magazine.

Despite spending most of their college years at the depths of the Great Recession, new graduates have high expectations of their earning power. About 40 percent said they expect a starting salary of $50,000 to $75,000 for their first job out of college.

The Class of 2012, soon to be spilling out of colleges and universities and applying for jobs, has high expectations for their career prospects.

In a new joint study by websites Experience and Achievers, this new batch of millennials is shown to be career-minded, loyal, brand-savvy and likely to know from the get-go at which company they want to work. Further, they’re most likely to simply pick up their smart phone and apply for a job online at that company’s website.

And apparently money isn’t everything to new graduates. Even though the Class of 2012 collectively is graduating with more debt than ever from student loans, 54 percent said career advancement opportunities were more important than salary, according to the study, which is in its third year.

Despite spending most of their college years at the depths of the Great Recession, new graduates have high expectations of their earning power. About 40 percent said they expect a starting salary of $50,000 to $75,000 for their first job out of college.

According to an annual survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, new grads may be aiming a bit high. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania-based NACE’s April 2012 Salary Survey report—the first report on salaries for the Class of 2012—shows the overall median starting salary for a bachelor’s degree graduate has risen 4.5 percent to $42,569 for the Class of 2012 from the last median salary of $40,735 for the Class of 2011.

“The overall median salary increase is the result of gains throughout most sectors,” says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director. “Even in those sectors that showed decreases in median starting salaries, the dips were very slight.”

Education and communications majors are seeing the most significant increases to their median salaries over last year. Graduates with education degrees are entering the work force with a median salary of $37,423, 4.5 percent higher than the $35,828 earned by members of the Class of 2011.

Hiring of graduates is up as well and is improving. NACE actually revised its figures upward in April, showing that businesses expect to hire 10.2 percent more graduates this year.

Razor Suleman, founder and CEO of San Francisco-based Achievers, said the study also uncovered a disconnect between statistics and reality when it comes to millennials. Twenty-two percent of respondents expect to stay with their first employer more than 10 years.

“According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, they stay 18 months on average” in a job, Suleman says. “But that’s not what they’re telling us their intent is. They’re entering this relationship with their employer, and on average they’re telling us they want to stay for 4.7 years.”

Knowing what this new generation of workers wants vs. what they do in the workplace is an opportunity for companies to change their approach to millennials, Suleman says. Most companies tend to be stuck in the past, using antiquated notions of performance review and recognition that don’t cut it with Gen Y workers, Suleman says. For example, a gold watch after 25 years of service means nothing to them.

“Gen Y grew up being praised, getting gold stars, getting trophies just for participating,” Suleman says. “When they enter the workforce, they’re not going to change; companies need to. If you want to keep them engaged in a workplace, feedback and recognition on a weekly basis is paramount. Of the nearly 8,000 respondents to our study, 84 percent said that is what they wanted.”

Suleman adds that employer branding has never been more important to the recruiting process. The study notes that 87 percent said they would apply for their first jobs at a company website. “These students already know who you are. You need to fish where the fish are biting, which is online.”

Carl Nielson is a professional career and executive/leadership coach and creator of the nationally recognized program Career Coaching for Students™ . Career Coaching for Students is available as a district-wide high school program and through certified career coaches throughout the United States and other countries. Call Carl Nielson at 972-346-2892 to discuss specific needs.

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High Schools Recognize Online Student Career Planning Solutions Aren’t Making the Grade

Posted on April 4, 2012 | Leave a comment

According to an article in Education Week, more and more schools are recognizing that career and education planning for secondary students is essential to producing self-sufficient graduates ready for the workforce of today. With post-secondary education receiving an increasing amount of attention nationwide, many high schools are finding that helping students choose a career goal encourages improvement in academic performance and achieves significant results for their students.

Any increase in planning is welcomed, but many planning programs focus solely on admissions test prep and non-directed career exploration, relying on a series of questionable online inventories and surveys that do not allow for the introspection and guidance needed for such a consequential decision. In contrast, the American School Counselor Association’s National Standards for Students and The George Washington University Freshman Transition Initiative’s Standards for Freshman Transition find three areas of development are key to effective guidance and planning: academic, career, and personal/social development.

Online solutions may seem adequate but are poorly suited for promoting personal/social development, creating intentional student engagement in academics and achieving the results that will make a measurable difference for students. Many high school programs often settle for (and demand) the creation of a 4-year plans starting with the freshman year. Choosing a track is great if it is based on an informed decision by the student. Most high school freshmen are not given the opportunity to do quality research and introspection to make an informed decision – yet the chosen track will impact them for years to come. And these plans only focus on taking the student through a “chosen track” through the end of high school and neglect planning for post-secondary completion and workforce entry, unlike the 10-year career and educations plans recommended in the Standards for Freshman Transition.

There is one alternative – Career Coaching for Students™. To learn about the Career Coaching for Students program, which meets all the Standards for Freshman Transition recommendations, check out the information at http://www.careercoachingforstudents.net.

Carl Nielson is a professional career and executive/leadership coach and creator of the nationally recognized program Career Coaching for Students™ . Career Coaching for Students is available as a district-wide high school program and through certified career coaches throughout the United States and other countries. Call Carl Nielson at 972-346-2892 to discuss specific needs.

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Career Mapping Catching on in High Schools

Posted on March 26, 2012 | 1 comment

The article Career Mapping Eyed to Prepare Students for College by Caralee J.  Adams, reviews the current state of high school student preparation strategies for researching and making career choices. I’ve pulled a few quotes and provided some comments and insights into what the reality of today’s efforts are producing.

Secondary schools are becoming more intentional about helping students discover their career interests and map out a plan to achieve them.

This effort is only as good as the foundational approach. As the article suggests, “Finding time during the school day can be a challenge, and the job of overseeing the process often falls on already stretched counselors, according to researchers and program administrators.” The assessments that schools use (see comment further down about Naviance) are not valid and can not be used in the work world to match people and jobs. Students recognize these issues quickly and consequently dismiss the entire exercise as a “waste of time”.

About half of all states mandate that schools help create individual or student learning plans, and most others have optional programs.

A student learning plan is something schools have been providing since student guidance counseling was created. Designing and attaching a student learning plan to a career direction is not something that should be done until high school. Mandating this activity has not created any measurable change that can be associated with increased post-secondary education, higher GPA or better test scores.

Enabling students to make their own plans puts them in the driver’s seat and encourages a long-term look at their course selection so their choices match their career goals, experts say.

The key here is “match their career goals”. A high school student is not equipped to make sense of the assessment results and do not have the necessary knowledge about different career paths to make decisions about career direction on their own. Schools do the best they can to expose students to different career areas but it is a shot gun approach that results in students feeling lost and/or overwhelmed.

Often, districts give students online accounts with passwords to track classes; create an electronic portfolio of grades, test scores, and work; research careers; and organize their college search.

These online accounts, including the one mentioned in the article, Naviance, have been around long enough to measure their effectiveness. Ask any student, and I really mean any student, that attends a high school with Naviance (or other online solutions) and ask them how they used Naviance. The answer I receive is “I didn’t.” or “It wasn’t helpful at all.“.

Schools, meanwhile, have not yet experienced the payback on their investment. As with many education programs, the rollout is left up to districts, creating a patchwork of approaches throughout the country.

This is a great “excuse” for the companies such as Naviance and the school administrators. A person I respect who works with at risk kids and served on a school’s trustee board and knows Naviance very well stated the online solution was “used only to help students get into a preferred college” – not to help them identify and focus on career direction.

Students create plans starting as early as the 6th grade. Of course, they can—and often do—change their minds about their career path. …Typically, a student might have a career-exploration unit in 7th grade. Through an interest inventory, in which the student answers a series of questions about preferences for working, say, with people or numbers, indoors or outside, his or her interests are matched with career clusters and pathways.

Childhood development studies clearly show that a student’s behavioral style and motivators are being established through middle school. The motivators (personal values) are set earlier. Behavioral style is in “wet cement” as students enter high school. The behavioral style and motivators are key to aligning a person’s “talent” to career options. Therefore, serious career exploration and career mapping is not useful until high school. Schools need to use a broader “exposure” strategy until high school. In high school, the focus needs to be at the individual level. That is where true career coaching is most effective. Also, did I mention the assessments used in school are not valid and reliable.

Knowing that high school students today connect best with online materials, the College Board recently launched a new interactive college-planning site, the BigFuture.org. And U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., recently introduced a bill to pilot a project in which students beginning in 1st grade could start portable online college-planning and -savings accounts.

Students connect best with online materials? Give me a very talented teacher and the student will choose the teacher over online every time. The issue may not be the “preference for online materials” but rather a rejection of low quality teaching. With respect for Senator Coons, if we want to make college more affordable, fund the use of career coaching programs like Career Coaching for Students™  that are known to reduce the risk of changing majors in college and provide a student with an exciting personal future view that leverages their motivational and behavioral career match.

Todd Bloom, the chief academic officer for Hobsons, the Cincinnati-based company that produces Naviance, an online career- and college-readiness system, said the depth and breadth of individual learning plans are expanding, and the cost can run less than $5 per student per year. “It’s not a hard sell,” he said. “It’s socially desirable to have that vehicle. ”

And here you have the issue. School boards look at their budget and what they are “required” to provide and see online systems like Naviance as an “easy” solution to implement. Parents that are aware of the offering assume it is providing something helpful. The saying “you get what you pay for” is very applicable here. There is no hard data that shows any ROI on these “low cost” online system solutions like Naviance.

Yet a goal of the program was to increase high school graduation rates and that did not happen, said Jay Ragley, the director of the office of legislative affairs for the state. “It’s difficult to peg why we are not increasing graduation rates. That goal has still eluded the state,” he said, adding that it’s been a challenge to get parents used to the idea of career planning as early as middle school.

Until parents demand and receive better solutions in schools, I strongly recommend engaging a career coach for your high school student – as early as incoming HS Freshman rank and no later than the beginning of the Sophomore year.

Side Note from the trenches: We’ve approached school districts about integrating the Career Coaching for Students™ program as part of a high school curriculum. This program can easily fit into one class per week for a semester with other classes referencing parts of the program throughout the four years of high school. Students have access to the online career and education research tools throughout the four years. The most common statement we received as feedback: “Wow! This is exactly what we need. If we had this, we’d push our “online-only system” to middle school and have this for all of our HS students.” Our response to that: “Great! What is the next step to make this happen?” Reply: “Oh no, we’re too invested in what we have now. To go back to the school board and say we’ve got something better would not work out well for us. And besides, we know we won’t receive more funding to cover a more expensive solution.”

Carl Nielson is a professional career coach, creator of the nationally recognized program Career Coaching for Students™ and managing principal of The Nielson Group, a management consulting firm specializing in hiring and selection, team effectiveness and executive coaching.

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What Advice Did Successful People Receive? Sounds Like Great Advice for Teens

Posted on March 18, 2012 | 1 comment

Business Insider.com recently posted snippets of advice that highly successful people received from mentors as they were growing and developing. As I read each one, I felt like they were speaking to teens (or should have been). Yet, the quotes were pulled from speeches, articles and interviews intended for adults already in mid-career. Since most teens don’t have Business Insider que’d up as an RSS feed I thought I’d post the quotes. You can click on the link above to go directly to the article.

Also, if you are looking for more in the “advice for success” you can find some great videos including Steve Jobs infamous 2005 Stanford college graduation commencement speech posted on the Career Coaching for Students “Got Motivation” page.

Great advice and motivation videos - best motivational videos

1. Terry J. Lundgren, CEO, Macy’s
Gene Ross, the man who recruited Lundgren at Bullock, told him: “You’re not going to do this forever. There’s a finite amount of time you’re going to be doing this. Do this really, really well. And if you do this really, really well, everybody will see that, and they’ll move you onto the next thing. And you do that well, and then you’ll move.”

2. Richard Branson, founder and chairman, Virgin Group
“My mother always taught me never to look back in regret but to move on to the next thing. The amount of time people waste dwelling on failures rather than putting that energy into another project, always amazes me. I have fun running ALL the Virgin businesses — so a setback is never a bad experience, just a learning curve.”

3. Marissa Mayer, VP, Google
“My friend Andre said to me, ‘You know, Marissa, you’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself to pick the right choice, and I’ve gotta be honest: That’s not what I see here. I see a bunch of good choices, and there’s the one that you pick and make great. I think that’s one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever gotten.”

4. Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs
His boss at Goldman during the 1980s told him:
“First, it’s good to solicit your people’s opinions before you give them yours. And
second, your people will be very influenced by how you carry yourself under stress.”

5. Maureen Chiquet, Global CEO, Chanel
Mickey Drexler, CEO of Gap at the time, told Chiquet:
“I’m going to give you some important advice. You’re a terrific merchant. But you’ve gotta learn to listen!”

6. Tory Burch, co-founder and creative director, Tory Burch
“When I started my company, many people said I shouldn’t launch it as a retail concept because it was too big a risk.They told me to launch as a wholesaler to test the waters — because that was the traditional way. “But Glen Senk, [then] CEO of Urban Outfitters and a mentor of mine … told me to follow my instincts and take the risk. I wanted to create a new way of looking at retail.”

7. Eric Schmidt, executive chairman, Google
“Find a way to say yes to things. Say yes to invitations to a new country, say yes to meet new friends, say yes to learn something new. Yes is how you get your first job, and your next job, and your spouse, and even your kids.”

8. Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook Sheryl Sandberg COO Facebook
When Sandberg was thinking she wouldn’t accept an offer to be Google’s general manager, Eric Schmidt told her, “Stop being an idiot; all that matters is growth.” She says that’s the best advice she ever got.

9. Larry Page, co-founder, Google
“In graduate school at Stanford University, I had about ten different ideas of things I wanted to do, and one of them was to look at the link structure of the web. My advisor, Terry Winograd, picked that one out and said, ‘Well, that one seems like a really good idea.’ So I give him credit for that.”

10. Howard Schultz, CEO, Starbucks
“Jim Sinegal, the founder of Costco, gave me fantastic advice because we were going down the wrong track. We brought him in to look at our plan and he said, ‘You know, I don’t want to be rude but this is exactly the wrong thing to do.’ This was my idea, and he was right. “His advice was the cost of losing your core customers and trying to get them back post-recession would be much greater than trying to find new customers, so we completely shifted.”

11. Maria Bartiromo, anchor, CNBC
“My mom says, ‘You have to have alligator skin. You can’t believe the good stuff, and you certainly can’t believe the bad stuff’ and that’s something I’ve come to accept. “So when I see someone say anything nice about me in a magazine or anywhere, I probably won’t read it, because I don’t want to be in a place where I start believing my own press releases.”

12. Richard Parsons, former chairman, Citigroup
Steve Ross, the former CEO of Time Warner, told him:
“Just remember, it’s a small business and a long life. You’re going to see all these people again.”

13. Jennifer Hyman, CEO and co-founder, Rent The Runway
“Just do it. There’s no benefit to saying, ‘I’m just doing this because it will get me to this new place,’ or ‘I’m just going to go into this analyst program because it will prep me for X.’ “If you’re passionate about something, go for it, because people are great at what they love and when they’re the happiest.”

14. Edward Rust Jr., chairman and CEO, State Farm
“[My father] had the uncanny ability with just a couple of little phrases. One: ‘You know better… don’t you,’ and ‘you can do better… can’t you.'”

15. Joe Uva, former CEO, Univision
“Always have the courage of your convictions. Always state what’s on your mind. Follow your gut. And observe what other people are doing around you.”

16. Mohamed El-Erian, CEO and co-chief investment officer, PIMCO
“I remember asking my father, ‘Why do we need four newspapers?’ He said to me, ‘Unless you read different points of view, your mind will eventually close, and you’ll become a prisoner to a certain point of view that you’ll never question.'”

17. Kenneth Burdick, president and CEO, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Minnesota
Burdick received this message from various successful people he has met:
“Surround yourself with good people. And part of that is surrounding yourself with people who think differently than you. Surrounding yourself with people who have different experiences than you. In business, it’s all about the team.”

18. Steve Schwartzman, chairman and CEO, Blackstone Group
“[My high school] coach, a 50-year-old named Jack Armstrong … would shout, ‘Remember—you’ve got to make your deposits before you can make a withdrawal!’ …”Coach Armstrong came to mind in one of my first weeks on Wall Street, 35 years ago. I’d stayed up all night building a massive spreadsheet to be ready for a morning meeting. … The partner on the deal, however, took one look at my work, spotted a tiny error, and went ballistic. “As I sat there while he yelled at me, I realized I was getting the MBA version of Coach Armstrong’s words. Making an effort and meeting the deadline simply weren’t enough.”

19. Peter Swinburn, president and CEO, Molson Coors
“The then-big boss asked me to go and do basically a turnaround job. And he said, ‘I don’t mind what you do, as long as you don’t do what we’ve done before.'”

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