Identifying Your Dream Job: Using A Career Pathways Approach For Schools

Identifying your dream job at school age is not easy. Understandably, not all students automatically know the right courses to study and the correct career path they should take to get there. Indeed, my own son is at a critical stage in his own career pathway, he is in the process of doing his GCSEs and assessing his options for sixth form and beyond. It really is tough to find genuine independent careers advice even if you do have a clue what career you wish to pursue. Here at Concept4 we have partnered with Career Pathways to provide a searchable careers library that seamlessly integrates into your school website.

Career Pathways for students

The Pathways Explore product helps students research over eight hundred different career options including comprehensive information about role, salary and employment data. Careers can be mapped to the school’s curriculum area pages and provide students and advisors with lots of great ways to raise career awareness and help students see clearly the link between their options going in to Years 10 and 11 and potential future career paths.

Career Pathways for teachers

For teachers, using Pathways Explore in a ‘Careers Hub’ area of the website and as part of Careers Information Advice and Guidance (CIAG) with a class or individual students is invaluable – students will feel at ease with the information being online, available from any device, easy to consume and gets straight to the point.

Using Pathways Explore helps fulfil some of the Gatsby Benchmarks as part of Ofsted's careers criteria – inspectors will of course check the school’s website in advance of a visit, where they’ll be looking for evidence of guidance on labour market information, linking curriculum to careers and highlighting routes in to further and higher education. Career Pathways does this, and so much more!

Pathways can be a great careers resource beyond the website itself, too. Using Pathways Infographics, customised job sector and occupation posters for classrooms and social media cards for Twitter and Facebook engagement can be generated to help students (and their parents) be better informed about their potential future career.

So how do you identify your dream job and what is a career pathways approach?

If you were a secondary school student wondering what career path to take, perhaps overwhelmed by the number of possibilities available to you, wouldn’t it be great if detailed information was at hand? A career pathways approach can provide valuable insight into the skills, qualifications that industries require for different jobs. Understanding this information can help you make informed decisions about your future, giving your studies purpose and direction in order to reach your desired career goals. By researching existing career options, secondary school pupils are able to gain a better understanding of the skills, qualifications and industries that are necessary for certain jobs. For example, if a student is interested in becoming an engineer, they will need to focus their studies on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) related subjects. The different scenarios are numerous so this is where the Pathways Explore product can really help.

When students know what they need to do in order to get where they want to go, they can create a timeline of steps to get them there. This in turn can help students stay motivated and on track with their educational plans. This research can also be done by attending career events, such as open days or by speaking to existing professionals, perhaps a relative or family friend. Additionally, students should look into colleges and universities that offer courses related to their career goals. They should also consider additional activities they could take part in which will help them develop relevant skills, such as short term internships or volunteering opportunities. Once students have identified the best fit for them, they should set goals for their future. Longer term this could include completing a degree course and gaining professional qualifications related to their chosen industry.

Recently Concept4 have launched a new website for Fairfield High School for Girls which incorporates the Pathways Explore tool. This allows the user (that’s students, parents and staff) to explore in great detail the many different job roles available, even including estimates on future employment levels in this role. For those unsure of what career is for them they can take a profile quiz which makes career suggestions based on interests and preferences.

Certainly, anything that raises career awareness and helps school students find the right courses, for the jobs they want to do, is a fantastic and great value option to have integrated into your website.

Try out Careers Pathways Explore here. 

There is a no obligation one month free trial of the entire suite of Career Pathways tools available to Concept4’s new and existing clients, with no upfront payment required, and it costs less than you think!

Contact us to find out more.