It’s Your Life
What are you
gonna do with it?
It’s Your Life
• Focus today:
• “What does a high school student
need to do NOW to be successful
later?
It’s Their Life
• Are they ready?
Most career decision-making is unintentional
and uninformed.
• 65% of 11th and 12th graders never had a one-on-one
meeting with their school counselor to discuss postsecondary and career opportunities.
• 10% of high school students say they have received
meaningful career guidance at school.
• 65% of working adults do not believe they are in the right
job
(NCDA/Gallup, 1999)
What really happens after
high school?
• 60% of high school graduates go to
post-secondary by the age of 24
• 40% change programs or quit in the
first year
• 50% NOT in jobs related to their major
two years after graduation
• 50% drop out rate after 1st year
What can we do?
• Encourage experiences
• Be a support system
• Affirm who they are
• Share information
It’s Your Life
What are you
gonna do with it?
It’s Your Life
The average lifetime includes
100,000
hours at work!
You’d Better LOVE
what you do!
100,000
hours @
work
Gallup Polls indicate 65% of working adults
do not believe they are in the right job.
(NCDA/Gallup, 1999)
Life After High School
Where are you in the process of
deciding?
• 1. Don’t Care: I don’t want to think about it.
• 2. Unsure: I’ve given it some thought.
• 3. Curious: I’m aware of some good career
choices for me.
• 4. Confident: I know all my options
Education
Is a college degree your only ticket to
success?
“Knowledge is power. Education is
paramount to anything you’re going to
end up wanting to do. The person that
knows the knowledge is the person that
is going to get paid.”
How else can you
“get the knowledge” ???
Options
There are many options after high school:
• 2 and 4 year colleges
• Technical Colleges
• Corporate training
programs
• Apprenticeship
training
• Adult education
•
•
•
•
•
On-the-job training
Workplace experience
Intern/Apprenticeship
Military
Volunteer/Community
Work
• Entrepreneurship
• Self-employment
How do I know
where to start?
Take a look
@ Yourself
Every career requires different skills.
One way to find a career that suits you is to consider
Natural Intelligences
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Bodily/Kinesthetic
Linguistic
Logical/Mathematical
Musical
Naturalist
Interpersonal
Visual/Spatial
“body smart”
“word smart”
“number smart”
“music smart”
“nature smart”
“people smart”
“picture smart”
Focus on your strengths!
The secret to achievement
Ask yourself:
• What kind of activities have you loved to do since
childhood?
• What can you do that’s as easy as breathing?
• What sort of thing really excites you?
• Imagine you were famous in your lifetime, what
would it be for?
What Interests You?
(work should be identical to play)
Can you identify your top 3 interests?
• Realistic: work with your hands, tools, machinery
• Investigative: work with ideas with an emphasis on the
scientific or technical
• Artistic: creative self-expression
• Social: people-helping occupations (teacher, counselor,
social, religious)
• Enterprising: group leadership, management,
entrepreneurship
• Conventional: emphasize precision and accuracy in
management of details (accountant, financial analyst,
secretary)
Your personality
@ work
Which color describes your personality?
Green?
Blue?
Gold?
Orange?
Trademarked under name True Colors
How do I
prepare
for the future
workplace?
Look to the Future
The average employee has 913 jobs over the course of a
career.
The average job in America only
lasts 3.6 years.
How about 3 to 5 radical career shifts in
your lifetime?
How do you prepare for that?
Have Skills, will travel
Your best defense against the future’s
lack of job security is:
• Know your best skills
• Get better and better at them
• Reshuffle your “skills deck” to fit various job
opportunities (remember 9 to 13 job changes?)
Consider this your
“transition survival kit!”
Marlowe Embree UWMC 2004
Diversify
• Pick several skills (3 to 5) that are
different yet related
(i.e. web development and teaching)
• Pick skills that represent your
natural gifts
(what were you good at when you were 8
years old?)
Think Like an
Entrepreneur
• You are not “entitled” to a paycheck!
• Is your benefit to your employer
(as a problem-solver, profit-generator,
etc.) greater than your cost (the
paycheck)?
• More simply, what are you offering and
why would anyone want it?
Do you have a ‘Plan B’ ???
• Can you bounce back from hard times?
• Can you see the possibility instead of the
threat in change?
• Things in life rarely go as planned.
• How many times have you been
disappointed but things worked out better
than you thought?
What will get you
Out of bed
in the morning?
“Experience is not
what happens to
you; it’s what you do
with what happens
to you.”
- Aldous Huxley
Balance
Work is about three things:
• Making a Living
• Making a Life
• Making a Difference
What do those three things mean
to you?
Connections Matter
because…
1. You can’t do everything
(need to swap favors with others who are
weak where you’re strong)
2. People hire people they know &
trust (or who are known & trusted by people
they know & trust)
3. People who need people are the
luckiest people in the world.
Motivators
Choose which two of these things are
your most motivating and
least motivating:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Security & Stability
Technical Competence
Management & Responsibility
Autonomy (do it your own way)
Entrepreneurship (run your own show)
Service to Others
Pure Challenge
Lifestyle Balance
Will you
Survive
in today’s
work world?
“When we hire…we look
for someone committed.
They have to have a spark
for life, they have to get on
well with everyone and
then have the education,
skills and qualifications.”
Checklist
 Check off the words that describe you:
 DEPENDABLE I keep my promises.
 ADAPTABLE I don’t freak out when things change.
 PREPARED I show up ready as well as able.
 PROFESSIONAL I look as well as act the part.
 SELF-DIRECTED I get things done on my own.
 POSITIVE I pitch in without complaining.
 CURIOUS I like to learn more about whatever I’m doing.
 PROUD I am courteous to others.
 AMBITIOUS I work hard to reach my goals.
____ Total s
88% of top executives said character,
leadership and communication skills are
better predictors of success than test
scores.
- National Urban League 2001