Alex: ‘So dad you just phone people up and ask them if they want to work for one of your clients, that’s such an easy job.’
Me: ‘It’s only easy because I make it look easy.’
Alex: ‘Fair enough.’
My 13 (very soon to be 14) year old son is about to pick his GCSE options and he hasn’t got a clue what he wants to do. And apparently nobody at his school have had any discussions with him about his further education or indeed future career.
This is going to sound like I’m an old, out of date, middle aged, white man, broken record for sure but here we go. In my day (told you), I do distinctly remember there being a ‘Careers Officer’ at school and at my college.
Ok so my wife is sick of this story as apparently, I’ve told it before but she won’t read this so whatever. The starting point was the Morrisby test (for children). The Morrisby test is (from memory) a ‘research tool’ to assist parents, pupils (aged 11 upwards) to ‘discover the world of work and pathways forwards.’ And there was me thinking these things don’t exist anymore. Check out their website here as this is not just for children and probably represents a great starting point for an adult looking for a career change for example.
There is an extensive library that details various careers, subject choices, apprenticeships that are available along with detailed routes to entry and the relevant qualification requirements.
The foundation of Morrisby are ‘Simple yet powerful assessments that match students’ individual interests and preferences to specific careers and courses, analysing results against more than 600 careers.’
So getting back to the point, the ‘story’ of my own forays into the world of work/career and how to get there was probably initially at least through a careers officer at school. Back then there were mock interviews also and discussions around CVs, but my first real memory of thinking about a career (and the educational/experience route to get there) was with the initial completion of the Morrisby assessment. The assessment came out with a personality profile and relevant careers; I think a Trader on the Stock Exchange was the number one career choice, followed by an Officer in the Armed Forces. The eye-opener being that I didn’t know anything about any of the careers that came out as a result of the ‘strongly agree, strongly disagree’ answers to the various questions, but I do remember thinking at the time; hmm, neither my parents or grandparents (or indeed anyone I know) does this for a living, this is quite interesting I will find out more. And there we go.
The careers officer was from a military family and was very keen (to put it mildly) that I join the armed forces. All this did was confirm that I absolutely did not want to join the armed forces, so the jury was well and truly out on the authenticity of the careers officer but it did get me thinking of the various paths that I had available to me, something that my 13 (very soon to be 14) year old son did not really know about until our discussion.
So, while he was in primary school I got to thinking that my sons enjoys drawing, he enjoys maths and he enjoys pretty much every other subject. But the drawing and the maths (and sciences) has always been a natural strength where he shoes a natural aptitude for the topic also.
So far I have been very keen not to impress on him what I think he would be good at and what I think he should do after secondary school, preferring to let him find his own way.
To that end at the end of year 7 he came and told myself and my wife that he wanted to read law at university, not too far away from when he was 5 years old and wanted to join the police when he was older (indeed he has always had a real innate sense of ensuring justice prevails and that everyone is treated fairly), so this made sense and I could see how he had come to this. I was nonetheless very surprised as this was completely out of the blue.
So I got on the phone to my best friend, best man, life long friend and sought to find out his thoughts on the path (not of least resistance, but that he took versus the path he wished he had taken to get there; partner in one of the UKs oldest law firms). Our sons interests and subjects he seems to excel in very much in line with what he enjoyed at primary school; maths, sciences, art, history; all subjects that would generally be good to do at a-level with a view to reading law at university – brilliant, maybe avoid law at a-level but this could also work.
Fast forward to the end of year 8. And our son telling us he wanted to design cars for Porsche. Not as far fetched as you might think, remember I said he always had a real aptitude for art and design? His artistic ability did always have quite a technical ‘slant.’ His great grandfather on his mother’s side was a civil engineer, his grandfather on this mother’s side a mechanical engineer, I could see the thought behind the decision, great let’s look at that. What would be next? A levels; maths, art, history; these would all work? Not a million miles way from what he was thinking last year.
So to bring us up to date we are half way through year 9, my son has just told me he isn’t sure at all now what he wants to do, and do employers even look at education on a CV when looking to hire someone? I did say that totally depended on the role, pointing out that an accountant needs to be a qualified accountant so the education needs to be there, this was however my opportunity to float an idea passed him, something I had thought about ever since he was about 3 years old and with every conversation that I have had with him since he was about 5 my thoughts have only been reinforced.
Oh and he still does the same A-levels that we have bee ntalking about for almost three years now, and if he gets to 18 and changes his mind about the career/university/path he wishes to follow then guess what? He can!
(And if I am being totally honest, I did tell him I was the best placed person on the planet to advise him as such, not just because I am his father, this but also because I have literally built up two successful businesses finding people their dream career and been called a ‘machine’ a ‘wizard’ and even a recruitment ‘messiah’ by my colleagues AND my clients.)
You know, perhaps not having a career officer at my son’s school was the best thing that could have happened to him with regards to this, but what about all the other children?
Chris