Those graduating from high school, in college or planning to enter the workforce should know all the steps listed below.  This article will highlight what teens in high school should be doing to enhance their chances of a successful transition from school to work.

• Life Planning
• Career Awareness
• A One Page Summary of Your Ideal Job
• Career Exploration
• Career Planning  

1^st- What is Career Development?  Career Development is a term for the steps and strategies that you will use to develop your career.  In this term, the word career is used to mean your total life in the world of work, not just a particular field or job.

2^nd - Why do teens and young adults need to learn Career Development basics? The answer to this question could be a whole article in itself.  So, here's the summary:  By focusing on a short-term goal, say going to college or attaining a skill-certificate, students feel they've got their bases covered.  After all, they've got a plan for what to do after high school.  As many workforce counselors can tell you, some of their clients gain multiple retraining certificates and still can't get a job.  Education or training is one step in Career Development. One step does not make a ladder to success.

Post high school studies have been treated like an end in themselves.  In reality, it is a means to an end. If a young adult is going to get a job using their education or training, they will need to take additional steps and use additional strategies-like knowing very effective job search skills-in order to get a job using their studies.

3^rd - Career Development: Basic Steps

Life Planning - A job happens in the context of your life.  A job finances your life.  Every day, people who have achieved their job goals realize, "Oops, this job doesn't fit my life."  The reasons are numerous. But some could have sorted this out ahead of time by being aware of their most important values or preferred lifestyle.

How to:    Set a timer for 15 or 20 minutes. Think about the life you want as a young adult.  Some people can write or draw what they want off the top of their heads.  Others need to respond to questions in order to get at the details that will help them create a life you enjoy. No matter which kind of learner describes you best, take time to think out, write down, draw a picture or create a collage that illustrates the life you want in your twenties.  Knowing your life goals, either personal or professional, can help you with life planning too.

  Help with life planning:

• Cacareerzone.org has a feature called Reality Check (http://www.californiarealitycheck.com/) that will help you think out the lifestyle you want. 
• Picturing Your Ideal Life, page 154, What Color Is Your Parachute for Teens, 2^nd edition.
• Quick Goal Setting Exercise, page 96, What Color Is Your Parachute for Teens, 2^nd edition.

Repeat as necessary until you feel you've got a complete picture of your most cherished values and the lifestyle you're willing to work for as a twenty-something.

Career Awareness -  As you probably know, new jobs and new fields are constantly emerging. The current job market is rich with options.  If you don't know them however, all those neat job opportunities won't do you much good.

In a very informal survey of 120 college grads, Carol learned that nearly 40% felt that they had studied the wrong subject in college. These former students spoke of having knowledge of a very limited range of jobs. Most felt that medicine, law, business or education were the sum of their options.  If you are going to pay over $100,000 for an education in something, you want to be aware of the range of jobs that happen in the fields that most interest you.

How to:  If you are 15 you can start now.  If you are 17, we suggest that you make this a priority.  Each week, spend some time learning about a job or field that might match your interests. The http://www.dol.gov/; Onet.org and EUREKA.org are career information sites.  You'll find many others on the web as well.  Check out jobs you hear about on TV, read about in the papers, and hear adults talking about or jobs about which you've always wanted to know more. 

A One Page Summary of Your Ideal Job - A one page summary of the decision making parts of the brain need all important information relevant to make a decision on one page.  This is true whether you are deciding about colleges, what kind of car to buy or what jobs might suit. Notebooks with page after page of data are linear.   Your mind can't process information presented to it in that way.

How to:  Put all the important bits about your strengths, interests, skills, work environment preferences, values and goals on one page.  That page can be 8.5x11 or two pages that size facing each other or even larger.  The point is to see your top priorities at a glance.  As you learn about jobs, you can compare what you know about that job with what you want. See page v, What Color Is Your Parachute for Teens, for a model form.  Chapters 1- 4 in the book, just 37 quick pages gives you a step-by-step process to completing the, "Picture of Your Ideal Job." 

Timing:  You can make a one page summary at any time. But, when it is decision time-like needing to pick a course of study or find a job that suits you-it's time to up date your summary page.  If you created this page when you were 16, and now you're 18, don't make decisions based on what your 16 year-old self knew.

For an overview of the one page summary click this link to a short video Career Decision Making.

A Note to Parents of High School Teens with AD/HD

For students who have AD/HD, career planning--or anything else-is not quite as linear as Carol and I outlined in the article above.  Your teen's experience is likely to be sort of fluid or filled with bursts of ideas and activities at one point in time and disinterest, and/or resistance on the other.  Hang in there.  There are two important roles that a parent can play in supporting teens with AD/HD to find their calling.  Learning how and when to be an Encourager and a Door Opener will help you help your teen identify his or her niche in the world of work.

Two Roles Explained

 Encourager - I am talking here about carefully observing your teen and noticing what he or she is good at.  In this role it is equally important to communicate these strengths, skills and/or traits, objectively, to your teen. 

         Teens with AD/HD know their shortcomings all too well.  They have lived with poor grades, being disorganized, not having the homework completed when the teacher asks for it, or simply not having it with them when it is due. 

        They have seen the many times their teachers have written, "He/She is not living up to potential," on their report cards.  Oftentimes young people can begin to feel that they are not good at anything and that they won't be able to compete in the job market. 

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