Student Readiness with Connections Academy
Whether your teenager is planning for college or getting a job right out of high school -- -- figuring out a career path to match their interests and passions can be daunting. For many teens it's like looking for a buried treasure without a map. Students as early as in middle school are asking for help. Studies show they want to build skills and prepare for jobs now!
Joining us live with hands-on advice for parents is Dr. Lorna Bryant, the director of Career Education for Pearson's Connections Academy. For more information visit connectionsacademy.com
Joining us live with hands-on advice for parents is Dr. Lorna Bryant, the director of Career Education for Pearson's Connections Academy. For more information visit connectionsacademy.com
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00:00 Whether your teenager is planning for college or getting a job right out of
00:04 high school, figuring out the career path to match your interests and passion can
00:08 be hard. Well I talked to Dr. Lorna Bryant, the director of career education
00:13 for Piercings Connections Academy about hands-on advice for parents. Good morning
00:21 doctor, how are you doing? I am well, good morning. Well I think this is a very
00:26 important topic, especially as we're trying to understand this new generation
00:30 when it comes to of course careers. So let's talk about the data that you have
00:35 about teenagers today and their career planning compared to when we were in
00:39 high school because I think ours was pretty much you're gonna go do this no
00:42 matter what. That's right and and the data shows that our young people today
00:49 are very aware that industries, business are looking for early talent earlier to
00:55 fill these open jobs and because of technology, because of social media,
00:59 they're extremely familiar with the options that are available to them. What
01:03 they need is a little bit of guidance and figuring out which of those options
01:07 works best for them and that's why career readiness programs are gaining so
01:11 much momentum and are so important in high schools across the country today.
01:14 Yeah, okay doctor this is something I told my children because someone told me
01:19 and that is if you find the job that you love doing you're gonna make more money
01:25 at it and I think that's where you talk about parents talking with their kids
01:29 about how to connect their hobbies or interests that they will make money at
01:33 it because that's what they love to do right? That is exactly right. You have
01:38 hit on the very first thing that I asked my own children when we were
01:42 talking about this and by the way talking about it before your senior year
01:46 in high school is pretty important that earlier you can have these
01:48 conversations the better as a parent but they said to them what do you actually
01:52 enjoy doing? What can you see yourself doing for eight or more hours a day? You
01:57 like working with your hands? Do you like helping people? And think outside the box
02:02 a little bit. Maybe you would like to work in the healthcare field. You'd like
02:05 to work in medicine but you know you don't love biology but you love
02:10 computers, you love technology. There are lots of IT jobs in the healthcare field
02:14 that you might want to consider and then we talk about research. Let's
02:18 research the options that are available to you in the jobs based on the
02:22 interest that you have. So attend those job fairs and those career fairs. See
02:27 what's available at Connections Academies. You can explore business, IT
02:30 health. We have a partnership with Home Depot. See if the skilled trades are
02:35 something that you're interested in and then think about whether or not the
02:38 jobs that you like are in places where you think you'd actually like to live
02:41 and make your living. Power skills that employers are looking for employees to
02:47 have and stuff. It's very interesting that they're willing to teach them
02:50 these skills and what are some of those? Absolutely. Well we know that almost all
02:56 employers now are really looking for candidates with what we call durable
03:00 skills. We used to think about them as soft skills. Things like communication,
03:05 collaboration, and team building and creative problem-solving and
03:09 thinking. And the really good news is that most teams are probably
03:12 demonstrating these skills already. If they're in a sports team, if they're in a
03:16 band, if they're volunteering or doing part-time work. So as parents we
03:21 just need to really encourage them to participate in those kinds of activities,
03:25 practice them, and demonstrate those skills because promoting them on job
03:29 applications or college applications is really very valuable today. Yeah. Let's
03:34 talk about college and of course talking with teens about pursuing a four-year
03:39 degree or even just a two-year degree in college. I mean how do we do that
03:44 nowadays? Well I think the first way you open that conversation is making sure
03:49 they understand that no door is closed to them. No option is off the table.
03:53 It's no longer an either/or conversation. Either you're going to go to college or
03:58 you're going to go into the workforce. There are so many ways for
04:02 students to explore options that will give them a really lucrative and
04:05 fulfilling career. Maybe it is a four-year college, a two-year college, but
04:09 explore mentorships, apprenticeships, internships. You can earn college credit
04:13 in high school. You can also earn industry certificates while you're in
04:16 high school. And having access to that information and those options sooner
04:20 alleviates some of that anxiety for young people as they start to make that
04:24 decision about what they want to do when they finish high school. Yeah. Let me ask
04:27 you about employers responding to of course Gen Z's career aspirations. Are
04:33 they starting to do that a little bit more now? Well they're definitely aware
04:37 that they need to reach early talent earlier. And they're starting to set up
04:41 opportunities for that with training programs that lead straight to
04:44 employability, incentives like we'll offer to pay for college if you come to
04:49 work for us for a certain amount of time. Where there's still a little bit of a
04:52 misalignment is around you know what Gen Z values which is connection, real-world
04:58 authentic experiences like mentorships, apprenticeships, internships. A lot of not
05:04 a lot of businesses are really doing much of that. And so starting to put those
05:08 programs out, put those opportunities out for young people is really a pretty
05:12 great opportunity for a recruitment and retention perspective for businesses.
05:16 Yeah. Doctor, I'll tell you this is such important information especially for
05:20 those parents who are getting those kids ready to head to college or off to other
05:25 careers. So where can we find more information? You can find us at
05:30 ConnectionsAcademy.com. Perfect. Doctor, thank you very much for spending time
05:34 with us this morning. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
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