How 18-24 Year Olds Think about their Career Plans
Thank you to everyone who responded to my request for contacts with young adults (and their parents and teachers) to talk about how they think about their future life and career. With your help I had over 15 conversations with 18–24-year-olds and a handful of parents.
Today, I’d like to share what I found.
1️⃣ There’s a lot of variability in this age group about how they think and talk about the future. The drivers of the variability seemed to be (a) how parents engage on the topic and (b) how specifically college / university programs address career preparation. More than half of the young adults I spoke to could articulate their career aspirations within the context of life goals and purpose. Notably most of these people credited their family as the source of this holistic view of the future.
2️⃣ Those who were most confident about career steps and most polished in their career-oriented conversations tended to be least fluent in discussing life goals and purpose. The one who would have impressed me most in an interview for a Wall Street analyst job confided that she sometimes has a nagging feeling that none of this is what she really wants out of life. (I’m certain as an interviewer, I’d never have heard such doubts.)
3️⃣ A segment of the population expressed a clear sense of what they want their career to be and a decent understanding of what steps to take (internships, entry level job opportunities, work ethic) yet could do more to understand and demonstrate their skills. Especially when their degrees were not nominally applicable to their stated career objectives, these young adults struggled to demonstrate that their training and experience prepared them for the sort of jobs they are hoping to get.
4️⃣ A few folks I spoke to expressed fear about the future and the implications of making “the wrong” decisions now. In most of these cases, I hear a “fear of regret” or “regret aversion bias.” (If anyone knows the inevitable Greek word for this…..)
My conclusions from this terribly unscientific exercise are simple. As a parent or educator, it’s probably never too early to discuss life goals/purpose with young people. Colleges/universities have an opportunity to do more to help students identify their strengths and skills and to communicate them effectively in job interviews. And all adults can model a developmental mindset that normalizes risk taking, adjusting to challenges and failure, and actively reconsidering our goals as our life evolves.
My partners and I continue to build out a prototype coaching program for this population. Stay tuned for more as our work continues.
To be part of the dialogue, connect with me here or at john@aconnectedcoach.com