Career Development: Getting Young People to Buy In

by Tami Ali

How do we get Canadian youth to want to develop their career?

I’m 50 years old and have had a number of careers over the last 30 years, the longest as a recruiter for international oil and gas clients. I’ve seen and studied much in my life to see what motivates people in their careers. In a teenager or young adult’s life, I seem to be archaic or old fashion. “How could I relate to them,” they think. Although hard on my self esteem, I actually understand. By the time a client comes to me, they have spoken with their friends, parents, neighbours, teachers, coaches and anyone else who is important in their lives – people they trust or admire. They have been tested, directed, suggested, prodded and pulled. Now they sit with way too many options – everyone else being right to some degree.

Just for the record, they are not alone. The clients who are transitioning into new careers face the same dilemma. To be honest, I have experienced the exact same feeling when I was young and later when career transitioning. Overwhelmed! Too many options and too many choices leave us puzzled with the pieces scattered!

My goal with clients is to narrow down their target with a practical approach to recruitment they can use to be their own ‘headhunter’ – to help them be in charge of their livelihood.

Taking Ownership

There is a basic fundamental human need. We all need money because we need what money buys. We educate young people so they can eventually get a job in order to be independent (every parent’s ultimate dream). Yet, we don’t teach them the vital fundamentals to getting this job and then that job and how it all leads to a career.

A career path is typically made by trial and error.  We give others the control over how we live our lives. We do this by taking whatever job is offered or waiting for someone to give us a raise or promotion. It creates a cycle of ‘victimization’ in our jobs.  Jobs become isolated events. This takes away our ability to choose and to design our present and future.

In career development, the very first step is to teach people about the ownership of their job/career choices with a paradigm shift in job/career hunting – the job seeker is in charge of their destiny, not the employer.

Finding the Threads of Continuity

Working with youth, we do what most career professionals do. We go through what they like and where their talents lie. We look at past experiences and see the thread of continuity for a career choice. Then we go deeper. We discuss all aspects of their lives – movies, restaurants, family, values, interests, schooling, heroes or friends – everything we think can show common threads of styles, values and suitability. We look at where they excel – how they see themselves and how others see their talents.

The Needs Assessment

The next step is where I see a client ‘buy-in’ – they get energized here. I was actually surprised when I started this as I thought it was just common sense.

We go into a ‘Needs Assessment’. We start quite innocently by identifying what their current needs are – financially, mostly. With a typical financial budget we look at their current spending, as factually as possible (helps if they get copies of their bank statement). Categories are filled in such as shelter, food (eating in and eating out), clothing, transportation (bus or vehicle – cost, fuel, insurance, maintenance), entertainment, hobbies, sports, vacations. The client fills in these numbers in the first column.

Then there is a second column which identifies where they want to be next year with the same categories. Column three is for when they are about 30 (over the hill) and a last one represents the kind of lifestyle they want when they retire and are finished this working thing!

Each column is totalled. We look first at monthly income needs and break it down to an hourly wage. Column two is the same.

Here comes the fun part. We look at where they want to be as far as lifestyle goes in their 30’s. What kinds of shelter do they want – rent, condo, own a home? And where? How important is their family to them? Will they have a family – small or large? What about vacations? Do they prefer working with their hands or minds – professional or a labourer? Do they want to work inside or outside? Do they want union or non-union? Do they want to manage others or do the work? Filling in what kind of lifestyle they want at each of these phases. There is usually a corresponding, graduating salary with each lifestyle.

Now we loop around the other two areas. We thread together the skills, talents, desires and dreams so they can see where their career will go – inspired by the lifestyle their income will provide.

“The careers I wanna do when I’m older”

Here are some of the results we’ve seen from using this strategy:

“I want to start my career now so I don’t have to stop working later to get the right education”

“I know what I need to study in university in order to have the career I want in the future”

“I can be ahead of the crowd because I know where one job leads into the next”

“I know how to give my best at an interview if I’m choosing the employer”

“I’m excited to do what I love to do normally – makes working way more fun”

What started as helping with a class assignment to write his resume, ended like this for Cory B., a high school student: “I thought the session was awesome, it made me think so much more about the careers I wanna do when I’m older. If you could bring stuff like this into high school it would be an amazing experience for so many kids. I especially enjoyed the exercises we did with the chart we made.”

Tami Ali is the President of Best Foot Forward Consulting Inc. and has 25+ years experience in Human Resources. As a former VP of Operations and Managing Partner of a Calgary-based international recruitment firm, she specializes in recruitment, administration and training for local and foreign clients. She also has worked as a sign language interpreter and as a life skills coach at the Morley Reserve.