Developing New and Innovative Approaches to Support Career Readiness
Did you know 40% of all college students change their majors in the first year?
Did you know 40% of all college students change their majors in the first year? If not, you need to know the importance of being aware of what career learning is all about and why students should prepare themselves with a detailed career skills inventory to plan a suitable career path.
To be happy with their choice of career and stick to it in the long run, the students need to zero in on careers that align with their interests, aptitude, and passion.
And it’s the responsibility of career counselors as well as schools and school districts to develop new and innovative approaches to help students become career-ready. Here’s how they can do it.
1- Help students do a SWOT analysis
School districts and career counselors can encourage students to use innovative career planning tools online that have automated assessment tests. By taking them, students can identify their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT), while also having clarity about what their interests are.
Such test results will help in self-awareness and self-exploration, in addition to knowing what career choices align with their aptitude and interests.
Since every student will get a personalized test result, knowing their unique skills capabilities, values, aptitude, etc., would be easy. These traits can then be considered to decide whether they should opt for the primary career that such test results indicate or take up one of the secondary careers that could be good choices.
2- Link career instructions to experiences
To make learning engaging and interesting, college & career readiness resource centers can make available an extensive range of both online and offline resources and libraries. They’ll help students get all the information they need when going for an in-depth study in a particular area of interest.
Such readily available information will encourage self-study and help students become independent learners, which will go a long way in getting them career-ready.
Additionally, school districts and schools should help link career instructions to real-world career experiences. Workshops, sessions with guest speakers, mentoring, internships, or job shadows are all part of work-based learning that’s imperative for preparing students for their future success in the professional field of their choice.
3- Developing community and business partnerships
This is yet another innovative approach that school districts and schools should focus upon to get students career-ready. Local industries and companies are often interested in sharing their expertise to get the next generation ready for the workforce. Forging close ties with them will help students get summer work apprenticeships, internships, and the chance to get enrolled as mentees to take advantage of mentoring opportunities. Even voluntary opportunities with the local community could be useful in teaching collaboration, leadership, planning, and other skills, which could help a lot in the professional field.
By using innovative career planning tools, students can find such opportunities with relative ease.
Schools too can use such tools or college & career readiness resource centers to share and publicize the news of their recent industry ties and programs to encourage student enrolment, which will help them to get career-ready.
