Career success guide college career planning high school students book articles bendt preparation

Published Online: May 12, 2008
Published in Print: May 14, 2008
Why Is Career Planning a Low Priority in High Schools?
By John G. Bendt

Today a majority of high school students spend little time and effort exploring and evaluating what they want to do when they enter their work lives. As a result, they have little understanding of the workplace, and no action plan to prepare for a happy and successful future.
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02/01/2008
Are Graduates Ready To Work?
By John Bendt

What does the future hold for today's youth? Are they learning the skills they need to succeed? Are They Really Ready to Work?, a report released by The Conference Board (a business membership and research organization), shows there is an alarming trend in the United States for many of today's entry level workers, even those with a four-year degree, to lack critical workplace skills needed to succeed on the job.
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(Created: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 11:14 PM CDT)
If there's one message Orono resident and first-time author John Bendt wants to get across to high school students and their parents it's this: it's never too early to start planning for the future.

"I just feel there's a real need to challenge high school students," Bendt said. "I see a lot of them going off to college with no idea of what they want to do, with no action plan."
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It’s paradoxical that college-bound students and their parents put so much energy into selecting and gaining admission to a good college, yet give only minimal thought to such tasks as selecting a future occupation and learning the workplace skills required to compete in a global job market. Many students thus enter college with little direction and are naive about how the real world functions.

The 2006 report put out by the Conference Board, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, Corporate Voices for Working Families, and the Society for Human Resource Management, “Are They Really Ready To Work?,” found a disturbing trend developing in the United States: Many of today’s entry-level workers, even those with a four-year college degree, lack the critical workplace skills needed to succeed on the job. (The full report is available at http://www.conference-board.org/.)

To reverse this trend, we need to raise the priority of career planning for high school students, so that many more will explore occupational interests and learn some of the skills, tools, and attitudes they will need to achieve success in their work lives. Huge rewards can be gained by students who become proactive career planners. Here are some considerations that students—and those who teach and counsel them—should keep in mind:

Work at something you love. Students who explore occupations are more likely to pursue a career path they will find interesting and fulfilling. They also learn which “hard” and “soft” skills are needed to achieve success in the occupation, and therefore are better able to plan their coursework to support potential career paths.

Develop marketable skills. Proactive career planners can use extracurricular activities and part-time jobs to build important workplace “soft” skills such as these: verbal and written communication, ability to listen and relate to co-workers, teamwork, problem-solving, ability to be organized and use time effectively, ability to plan, organize, and set priorities, and the ability to persuade and resolve conflicts.

They also will have opportunities to demonstrate such personal attributes as responsibility, dependability, strong work ethic, self-motivation, self-confidence, flexibility, adaptability, and the ability to work under pressure.

Get a head start. Students who practice these skills in their extracurricular activities and part-time jobs are able to develop a résumé and portfolio of letters of recommendation that will greatly enhance their credentials and their chances of winning admission to college. They will also gain a head start in building skill advantages that are important to employers, thereby positioning themselves to win the job they want when they enter their work lives.

Bring occupations to life. Exploration of occupations also provides opportunities for students to interview adults working in the field. These contacts can lead to valuable mentor relationships, which can provide the student practical career advice and also help him or her in the complicated process of “growing up.”

Given the benefits, shouldn’t career planning have a higher priority in high school?
Save money. Proactive career planning can help college-bound students greatly reduce the possibility of requiring extra time to complete a four-year degree. The incremental cost of taking an additional year to graduate is very significant when college costs and missed income are considered. For example, the College Board estimates that the average annual college cost for a public college in 2007 was $13,589 and for a private college, $32,307. Average starting salaries for business, engineering, and computer-science occupations in 2008 range from $43,459 to $63,749, according to JobWeb.com, a career-development and job-search-advice Web site for college graduates.

Requiring one additional year of college because of indecision about a career path can therefore create an average incremental cost ranging from $57,048 to $96,056, depending on whether one attends a public or private college and what one’s starting salary would be. This is a significant penalty to pay for indecision and false starts.

Given the benefits—and the potential price of not acting—shouldn’t career planning have a higher priority in high school? A collaborative effort by parents, counselors, and teachers is needed to coach and guide students, as they are unlikely to initiate action on their own. An effective career-planning program should help students learn how to identify career interests and follow a process to eventually select a career path. It should educate students about the role competition plays in the workplace and which skills are valued by employers. Lastly, it should coach students in how to learn and practice these skills, so that they are prepared to achieve success in their work lives.

Parents should play the leading role in encouraging and guiding their children’s career-planning activities. School counselors should support both parents and students by educating them about the process, and pointing them to tools the school may provide to achieve program objectives such as those discussed here. Teachers can support students by incorporating the use of applied skills in the curriculum, and by encouraging them to explore careers related to the subjects they teach.

Working together, we can make a big difference in how high school students prepare for their future. We all spend a great amount of our lifetimes in our jobs. What could be better than to help our children find and be successful at a job they love to do?

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The Conference Board, along with The Partnership for 21^st Century Skills, Corporate Voices for Working Families, and the Society for Human Resource Management, conducted a survey in 2007 of more than 400 employers across the United States to identify skill sets that new workplace entrants will need to succeed. A key finding of the survey is that the "Three Rs" alone are not sufficient to succeed on the job, and applied or soft skills are essential for success. Among the most important soft skills needed by entrants into today's workforce are:

Professionalism / Work Ethic
Communications (Written & Oral)
Teamwork / Collaboration
Critical Thinking / Problem Solving

Employers' assessment of new workforce entrants' readiness on these important skills is alarming. A report card shows serious skill deficiencies for high school and two-year college/technical school graduates, and low levels of skill excellence for four-year college graduates. For example, the majority of employers rated high school graduate entrants deficient in all of the most important soft skills. A significant percent rated two-year college or technical school graduates deficient in communication and problem solving skills. And although four-year college graduates were rated mostly adequate, with the exception of written communication skills, only 25 percent of the employers rated them excellent on three of the five most important soft skills. The full report is available online at http://www.conference-board.org/.

Part of this problem can be attributed to the fact that most high school students put little effort into exploring what they want to do upon graduation, have little understanding or experience with the requirements of the work world, and have no action plan in place to prepare for their future, other than some plan to go to college. It's paradoxical that college bound students and their parents put lots of energy into selecting and gaining admission into college, but minimal thought and effort into selecting an occupation and learning the skills it will take to compete successfully in today's competitive global world. As a result many enter college with little direction, often require extra time to graduate, and most importantly, fail to hone critical workplace skills.

Pointing Students in the Right Direction

What can teachers, counselors and parents do to help students better prepare for their future in the workforce? Following are three actions that can make a difference:

Make the case to students that preparing for their future work life should be a high priority, because success in their work life depends on the ability to provide skills an employer will value. Students experience competition in sports, class work, and other extra curricular activities. Most, however, don't fully grasp the role competition will play in their work life, and that their ability to compete is the single most important factor in determining the success they will experience. Help students understand that the way to successfully compete in the workplace is to create skill advantages and to start preparing while in high school.
Bring the work world to students through exploration of occupations. Encourage students to use career center tools to identify and explore occupational interests and learn which hard and soft skills are needed to achieve success in the occupations. Most importantly teach them how to find and interview someone working in the occupation so they gain a realistic understanding of the work and requirements for success. Arming students with an agenda, such as Information Interviews, can alleviate anxiety caused by the uncertainty of what questions to ask. Student interactions with the professionals they interview can often lead to valuable mentor relationships.
Show students how they can learn and practice important workplace skills in their extra curricular activities and part time jobs. Opportunities to practice skillslike leadership, teamwork and communication abound if one participates in sports, school clubs and volunteer activities. Verbal skills can be sharpened by joining the debate or forensics teams, or writing skills can be improved by working on the school newspaper, or yearbook. Part-time jobs provide the opportunity to practice professionalism by demonstrating responsibility, dependability, initiative, ability to work under pressure and self confidence. Interpersonal skills can also be practiced in dealing with co-workers. Encourage students to keep a journal of how they practiced important workplace soft skills in their extra curricular activities and part time jobs. This documentation of skill use will assist the student in mastering the skill, and will be a very valuable record when the time comes to demonstrate one's skills when competing for a job.

The Road To Success

Despite the alarming news from the Conference Board report, there is hope. Counselors, educators and parents can make a major difference by encouraging students to be proactive in preparing for their future. With effective guidance students will gain a better understanding of the big picture and will enter the workforce armed with the soft skills necessary to compete.

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That's why the "semi-retired" management consultant with more than 40 years in the business world started his own publishing company - Career Mentor Press, LLC - and self-published his first book - "A Roadmap to Career Success: 25 Tips for College Bound Students" - in March.

"I'd always enjoyed mentoring kids and this gave me an opportunity to do more of it," he said.

Bendt said the book provides practical methods for students to explore career options and teaches them how to develop the skills they will need to compete in an increasingly competitive world.

"It teaches how the work world works and what skills are needed to compete," he said.

Those skills, he said, include "hard skills" - specific skills required for a chosen career; "soft skills" - sills like written and verbal communication, teamwork and time management, that are required in all occupations; and personal attributes liked being goal-directed and motivated.

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