Accountant? Painter? Pilot? Parents' tips for choosing a career
Do you still work in the job you once learnt? If so, you are the exception today. The days when you learnt to be a carpenter, teacher, bricklayer or businessman in the belief that you would be doing this job until you retire are over. In today's society, people increasingly no longer define themselves solely in terms of their profession. The pressure on young people to choose the right profession should therefore have decreased.
My experience is different. I am a class teacher of a second secondary school class and am currently in the middle of the career choice process with the young people. It turns out that choosing the right profession from over 230 is still a major challenge. What do we do at school? And what can parents contribute to a successful career choice process?
Subjects such as music, handicrafts and sport are also important
Vocational orientation", as the subject is called in the new curriculum, starts in the spring of the first year of secondary school and lasts until the autumn of the last compulsory school year. By then, most pupils should be in the process of applying for a job. By then, they should know what they are capable of and what they want to do with their qualifications.
When visiting a company, young people usually already know
after just two hours whether a job appeals to them or not.
As a first step, I tried to give the pupils lots of opportunities to get to know themselves: What am I good at? What do I like to do? What are my strengths and weaknesses? The school promotes the pupils' personal skills to enable them to make good decisions: they write about themselves, learn adjectives and verbs, are confronted with personal questions - even provocatively - and are given various tasks that require different skills such as sensitivity, logical thinking or manual dexterity.
We try to create an environment at school in which young people can discover their abilities and skills.
Subjects such as music, handicrafts, needlework, cookery and sport are also important, which I as a class teacher do not or only rarely teach with everyone - instead I network with the other teachers. If the process of initial self-discovery goes well, the young people are usually able to engage well with their career choice. If they can detach themselves from group dynamics, they usually come to a good decision.
Young people under pressure
However, young people are often under pressure - or at least that's how they feel: from their peers, from their parents, who want to satisfy them, and not least from themselves, because they don't yet know what they actually want and because this feels different every day during the hormonal fluctuations.
You, dear parents, are important contact persons in this process. This is how you can support your child:
- Seien Sie Ihrem Kind ein Sparringpartner, interessieren Sie sich für seine Fragen und Gedanken.
- Formulieren Sie Ihre Erwartungen: Die Jugendlichen können mit klaren Erwartungen besser umgehen als mit einer vermeintlichen Freiheit.
- Eltern haben eine Vorbildfunktion, was das berufliche Engagement betrifft. Eine positive Einstellung zum Arbeiten hilft den Jugendlichen, auch selber den Schritt ins Berufsleben positiv anzugehen.
- Gelassenheit hilft: Es nützt nichts, Ihr Kind zu drängen. Umgekehrt sollten Sie auch nicht einfach zuschauen, wie es sich nicht mit der Berufswahl befasst. Auf die richtige Mischung aus Vertrauen und sanftem Druck kommt es an.
- Unterstützen Sie ihr Kind bei der Organisation seiner Schnuppertage oder Schnupperwochen. Nehmen Sie ihm aber die Arbeit nicht ab: Zu telefonieren, vorbeizugehen, sich Situationen mit Erwachsenen zu stellen, stärkt das Selbstbewusstsein.
- Unterstützen Sie die Berufswünsche Ihres Kindes. Oft sind die ersten Traumberufe nicht diejenigen, welche die Jugendlichen dann auch wirklich erlernen wollen – doch sie weisen auf Interessen hin. Fragen Sie nach: Was macht diesen oder jenen Beruf für dich spannend?
Once the process of self-discovery has begun, the next important step is to familiarise yourself with the world of work. We adults rarely know more than 40 training occupations, and young people usually know even fewer. They can familiarise themselves with many different professions at careers fairs and when visiting large companies.
In most cases, young people know after just two hours, or after half a day at the latest, whether a profession appeals to them or not. These short visits, also known as career explorations, are important in order to follow up on the two or three most interesting professions in the next phase and experience them in a taster apprenticeship, which lasts around two to three days.
Teachers worried
The taster apprenticeships do not take place until the third year of sixth form. This is about getting to know each other in a company. A decision is made as to whether the apprenticeship is suitable or not. We teachers are concerned to see that some apprenticeships are already filled in the second year of upper secondary school. Disillusionment often follows in the third year. We therefore insist that the 1 November deadline for the allocation of apprenticeships is adhered to.
Today, we can still learn almost any profession in almost any situation. Even a university degree can still follow an apprenticeship. Although there are good reasons to attend grammar school, parents often succumb to the misconception that the Matura is the highest qualification. The truth is that the process of finding a career only begins after graduating from high school.
Although there are good reasons for attending grammar school, this does not mean that the
career choice process
only postponed.
Apprentices with a vocational baccalaureate, on the other hand, have not only passed their school-leaving examination, but have also already learnt a trade. The value of a Swiss apprenticeship was clearly demonstrated at the WorldSkills vocational championships at the end of October 2017: Our professionals won 13 world championship titles!
Image: Tim Gouw/Pexels
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