by Mathew Green,  My Cents Careers mean different things to different people. I used to want to be an astronaut, and to be honest part of me still does.. I also wanted to be a doctor, but the sight of blood terrified me.  I remember meeting with my career’s adviser at school, who ‘advised’ me that I should study a trade and not pursue a course at University.

I remember seeing lots of people leaving in Year 10 ( the youngest legal age) and becoming apprentices, working in retail just getting out of school so that they could figure out which direction they wanted to go in life. I decided to stay, continue my studies and try and get into University.

The difficult thing was that those that left school at Year 10 seemed to move on in life much quicker than the students that were ‘left behind’, learning about the joys of Pythagoras or Hawaii’s endangered Layson duck. Those that left school started earning money, began careers, didn’t have to study and seemed to start moving towards their life’s goals.

I am not against leaving school as soon as you can, or for not continuing to further education after your final exams – it worked for me, but it definitely doesn’t work for everyone.  In my opinion, you have to do what you love, it may sound cliché and philosophical, but you really have to do the thing that you love.

If your child is in Year 10 -12 – or even if they are a few years either side, it doesn’t hurt for them to start thinking about what they want to do ‘when they grow up.’

Following are some tips for them to get the process going:

1. Have a think

I believe that your time is precious, and that many people spend their lives doing things that they are neither passionate about or that excite them. Spend a few hours, a few days or a few months (as long as you need) thinking about what you want to do.

2. Start looking

Register your details on seek.com and careerone.com. Both website are fantastic for keeping up to date with what’s available. Both of these websites have a number of great tracking and monitoring tools that notify you when a job that matches your criteria becomes available.

3. Prepare your resume and cover letter

It’s always a good idea to have an updated resume handy. Each time I do some training or each time I attend a relevant seminar I add it to my resume. It is always a good idea to ask someone else to read through your resume to check for embarrassing spelling and grammatical mistakes.

4. Build connections

If you are looking for a casual job, spend a few hours handing out your resume to businesses at the local shopping centre. I worked for a number of organisations while I was at school and University. Even though they weren’t really ‘career moves’, the skills and values that I learnt doing casual work have proved extremely valuable in my professional life. If you are looking for a career, start asking people who are in the industry that you would like to get into, how they got there.

Have a go!

About the author:

Mathew Green is a primary school teacher who runs mycents, an online financial literacy resource, encouraging young people to make sound and educated financial decisions.  Link: www.mycents.com.au

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