The Homeschool Career Advantage
Successful job applicants need a strong foundation of hard and soft skills
Careers are in flux. Established methods of planning and securing a job are becoming less reliable. Attending college, for example, isn't as reliable a path to employment as it once was. Competition can be tough, even when applicants possess distinguishing skills or credentials. What employers are looking for has shifted in many career areas. The value of a resumé, for instance, is not what it once was, simply because the average job opening sees so many. Employers are looking for more than a competent document. Frequently, they want to see a combination of job-specific credentials, demonstrable soft-skills (such as language and mathematic ability), and people skills.
For the average job-seeker, this means that it's more challenging than ever before to stand out from the crowd of competition. This is particularly true when public education has become so generic. Students spend so much of their K-12 education meeting broad requirements related to standardized testing that they have little opportunity to specialize in the knowledge, skills, and personality strengths that will position them advantageously for that desired career position. For homeschoolers, however, this is a great opportunity.
Combining Basic Education and Career Education
Given that homeschool education offers greater flexibility and attention to the individual student, homeschool families can tailor the K-12 experience for each student, giving them the a much better launching point for their future career. While the traditional student is bound to a set of predetermined classes, course materials, and time expenditure, homeschool families have greater leeway. As a result, the homeschool student can pursue two objectives simultaneously: first, they can satisfy the need to accrue general education (the core subject matter typical to the K-12 experience), but second, the manner in which this general education is pursued can be tailored to career planning and career education.
For example, all K-12 students spend a sizable amount of time in writing classes. These classes present an opportunity for students to research, think deeply, and then compose essays about particular topics. Insofar as these classes engage with the specifics of writing, they are relatively the same. They focus on conventions of writing such as grammar and punctuation. Insofar as the topics are concerned, however, writing classes are all over the place. Traditionally, writing assignments in K-12 use famous literature as a topical basis for essays. Students write about novels, short stories, or various non-fictional readings. Sometimes, writing assignments relate to other subjects, such as history or biology. Other times, students are encouraged to just write about their personal interests, such as their favorite sports or music. There’s nothing wrong with students writing about their other school subjects or their hobbies. These are great material for composition, and students should continue to write about them, but we’re also missing an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.
The Career Prospect of Any Field of Study
Almost any schooling topic can be related to career studies
Writing classes are a perfect opportunity to make progress in career planning and education. In addition to all the essays students write about other disciplines and personal interests, students should write about potential careers. Just as students do detailed research for a paper for a science or literature class, they can also do research on a specific job. If students are already asked to understand data for a typical class on economics, they might as well spend time honing those same skills by examining, interpreting, and presenting statistics on employment rates and wages in a particular industry.
This isn’t limited to writing classes. If students are studying a musical instrument, they should do some research on people who play that instrument professionally. How many people at the national, state, and local level make an actual living playing that instrument? What jobs exist that are related to playing that instrument present a potential career, such as teaching lessons, composing music, or working in a music-related retail? If possible, the student should talk to people who make a living connected to that instrument. They should ask those people real questions. Are they happy with their career choice? Do they have regrets? What is the best and worst part about working in the music industry? What do they wish they’d known before they started down that path?
Virtually any subject can involve elements of career planning and education. If a student is learning about math, they should do some real-world application, such as balancing a checking account. This could be an opportunity for the student to learn the basics of working with a spreadsheet. (Parents/teachers, show your students how to use a spreadsheet! Give them an advantage by teaching them technology.) Now the student could research accounting as a profession. What’s the job market like for accountants? What do they make? Are jobs in demand or in decline? Now the student can go interview an accountant or two and ask questions. What’s it like, day by day, to be an accountant? What’s their favorite and least favorite part of their job? What do they wish they’d known?
This process can be implemented into virtually any subject. The point is to make career planning and education an part of the K-12 experience, not a separate thing that gets tacked on at the end. When careers are an afterthought to high school, they becomes divorced from thirteen years of educational effort. What a shame.
From Homeschooler to Engineer
Let me illustrate this concept with a story about my brother Brett. After finishing high school, Brett took two years of classes at the local community college. His plan was to go into engineering, but he didn’t know what kind. When the time came to transfer to a university to finish his degree, he needed to determine the particular kind of engineering he’d specialize in. Mechanical? Structural? Electrical? At this point, my brother did something really smart (good job, Brett). He found a few local engineers, each of whom specialized in a different type of engineering. He asked them if he could talk to them about their jobs, preferably at their place of work. Most of them agreed. Brett was able to get their perspective on the good and bad of the particular type of engineering that they practiced. He was also able to see the environment in which they worked. This experience was crucial to Brett’s decision-making. When the time came to settle on a engineering specialty, he wasn’t making a choice based on guesswork. Instead, he had the input of experienced professionals and his observations about their work environments to help him make an informed decision. Later, he also did two internships, which further helped him make a decision about the type business he wanted to work for when he was a licensed engineer.
Brett’s process is a significant step above how most young people approach career selection, but I think he could have executed the process even better. He could have done it sooner. What if Brett had realized—two years into his college education—that he hated the engineering field? What if those interviews with engineers convinced him that working as an engineer was actually a poor choice for his personality or skills? What I’m getting at is the idea that a process like Brett’s could be followed even earlier in order to avoid starting down the wrong path. There’s no reason why Brett had to wait until college to interview those engineers. He could have done the same thing in high school, or even earlier. I think that’s exactly what homeschoolers should consider doing as part of their education process—make this kind of practical exploration of career options a regular part of school.
Take a Shortcut to a Good Career Fit
The flexibility that homeschooling provides presents a great opportunity for families to be proactive about career exploration. This allows for early detection of compatible personality traits, skills, and experience, as well as the ability to develop awareness of trends in specific careers. When it comes to career planning, earlier is better, so take advantage of your homeschooling situation and do some exploring.
