8 Ways to Help Your Child Pick a Career Path

From a parent’s perspective, your child’s college years can fill you with excitement and curiosity at what they’ll do next. In your mind, they’re at a major crossroads, and the world – and its options – are at their fingertips. Your child, however, probably doesn’t see it that way. Facing the unknown, all the while feeling ill-equipped, can lead to anxiety, trepidation, confusion, and more. Their feelings are valid, but you have the life experience to walk them through this time. They will likely come to you for advice, and when they do, you need to be ready. With the below talking points, you can help your child discover their strengths, interests, and goals, which will lead them to take the first steps along their career path.

Explore Their Interests and Passions

The process of choosing a career path often starts with questions: what hobbies do your child enjoy? What school subjects interest them the most? Which topics spark their curiosity? Do they have dream careers in mind? You’ve had a front-row seat to your child’s entire life experience, and you’ll be able to talk them through the answers to these questions. Maybe you remember the qualities, characteristics, and circumstances, they’re not considering. You might see strengths and interests that are career-worthy that your child is overlooking.

Research Careers

From this conversation, you may be able to pinpoint potential opportunities. Explore careers by researching these options with your child, searching for majors, salary figures, and job locations. Reassure your child that it’s ok if this list is sparse – or overcrowded. Extend your research beyond the Internet. Talk to people you know in these careers and report to your child. Better yet, set up a time when you and your child can both meet individuals in different careers.

Use Career Assessment Tools

Whether your child is still unsure of a few career options or has a list of 20+ jobs, a career assessment can be a logical next step. These assessments can help individuals determine career paths by asking questions about interests, skills, values, personality, and abilities. We recommend taking more than one career assessment and comparing the results. This will help you identify a potential career, especially if the same one shows up across multiple assessments. This is also the point where your child may benefit from some outside help, like a career counselor at their college. Oftentimes, the college career center will offer assessments for free. Career counselors can then walk students through their options as well as connect them with alumni that may be working in that field.

Encourage Hands-On Experiences

Now it’s time to talk about hands-on experiences, like job shadowing, volunteering, and interning. These opportunities allow your child to see the day-to-day tasks, processes, and highs and lows of each job. These job previews will confirm if your child is on the right track. Better yet, if this job isn’t the right fit for them, a job shadow or internship will confirm that before they graduate from college. It may be daunting, but a failed internship enables them to “course correct” and find something else to pursue while still in school.

Research Education Requirements

Once your child has found a career that interests them, you both need to research the amount of education necessary to reach that goal. Some careers may require graduate or professional school. Other careers may have multiple pathways for reaching the end goal. For example, students interested in becoming lawyers don’t necessarily have to major in pre-law. They can major in Political Science, English, Philosophy, and more!

Being Open to Changes

Before your child takes their first steps on their career path, it’s important to have a conversation about how careers work – i.e. that they’re not always linear and being adaptable is key. It is not uncommon for students to change majors and adults to switch careers. Encourage your child to know that you’ll support them however their career path looks. Assert that it’s okay to change their mind, switch their field, or go back to school. Ultimately, you want your child to be happy with what they’re doing, and that may not always be the same career for their entire life.

Networking and Connecting with Mentors

At some point, your child’s questions and their own expertise in a field will grow very specific, past your knowledge. For that reason, it’s invaluable for your child to find a mentor in their field of choice. Your child can find a mentor through their alumni network, which can be accessed with help from their campus career center. They may also meet other individuals in their prospective career through career fairs or networking events that the college hosts. This is where your child needs to be bold. It can be daunting to ask someone they’ve only recently met to mentor them, but individuals who are passionate about their work will jump at the chance to guide the next generation through their field. Asking a mentor may be hard for your child, but finding someone willing to help them grow won’t be.

Support Their Decision

As a parent, you undoubtedly have expectations for your child. Perhaps you’ve always thought they’d make a great lawyer, doctor, or engineer, but you need to remind yourself that this is their life. They may be a math or science whiz but find joy and purpose in art. Ultimately, your job is to simply be supportive – and provide advice when they ask for it. If you feel like you have no control over their choices and outcome, keep in mind that you do have control over your patience and open-mindedness. Their choice may not be your choice, and their path may not be linear. That’s okay – and they’ll be okay, too.

Encouraging a Thoughtful Career Path

You get the privilege of being your child’s sounding board as they make big life decisions. While the choices they make are ultimately their decision, you can play a role in pointing them in the right direction. You can encourage them by being supportive, staying open-minded, and respecting their choices, even if they’re not the choices you would make for them. From their perspective, it will empower them to have such a wonderful cheerleader on their side.