I’ve been involved in several unrelated conversations recently which led me to begin thinking about recruiting young people after full-time education, in 2021 and beyond.  More specifically about young people who may not believe that they had the best opportunity to demonstrate their proficiency through examination and qualification.  I’m a great reflector and even without trying, I began to make plans about how to help our 16 – 18 year olds make future career choices.  Not to mention the graduates of 2021 and beyond.  The future will be exciting, although quite different for these intrepid pioneers as they navigate the jobs market.  They will need courage, and employers may need to redefine talent, or at least consider how best to assess capability.

We will always need business leaders as much as they will need us as their professional advisers.  It’s likely that opportunities in health and social care will increase while other sectors will need to reinvent themselves.  Engineers will continue to design bridges although the nature of their journey may be transformed, just like their route to qualification.  And what of our social butterflies, how will their needs be met?  How will our thespians learn their craft?  It’s highly likely that, “A” level students competing for university places right now, may be swapping online learning for virtual lectures in the Autumn.  No surprises, campus tours and interviews will have been conducted remotely.  This really is decision-making at a distance.  It’s a different kind of trust and it takes courage.

I had the pleasure to work with a determined group of soon to be graduates last summer.  A tough year for so many, 2020 was not the best year for launching some careers as planned.  Tutorials went online and university ended abruptly without party or graduation.  Student houses were dismantled at speed as some job offers were rescinded.  What impressed me most of all was the group’s open mind about what might be possible and how best to utilize their skills while learning new tricks.  High Street fast food was not their motivation for study or their desired destination, yet what a fabulous opportunity to manage teams and organise the safe delivery of food in “C-19 difficult” circumstances?

These are demanding times for students, as well as their parents and the educators.  How best can we prepare upcoming school and college leavers for work or higher and further education?  And how can we mobilise some of the solutions for 2021 so that they quickly become second nature.  What’s next for careers advice?  We need plans which go way beyond online questionnaires, virtual careers fairs, and virtual work experience.  Call me a cynic but how on earth does that work?  A flight simulator is likely to do what it says on the tin, but somehow it loses impact and its functionality over Zoom.

It may just be time to opt for a more generalist approach.  I’m all for single-minded determination and an unswerving ambition to follow a profession, although I’m promoting a plan B.  I’m advocating diversity and I’m definitely encouraging leisure interests and hobbies, as much as I am career plans.  The benefits of the DofE award scheme aren’t in question.  I’m simply adding the arts and creativity.  With the threat of future lockdowns uncertain and with employment opportunities diminishing, we need to encourage our young people to be adaptable – perhaps even to be entrepreneurs.  Together we need to open up new routes to business success and public services, creating entirely different work opportunities.  Maybe that’s a business born out of a desire to keep fit and healthy or an interest in antiquities.  It’s time to release that inner phoenix.

It’s up to us as advisors, parents and coaches to demonstrate the benefits of transforming what you’ve got into something new.  I still have vivid memories of an HRD demonstrating the value of adaptability over flexibility, using a length of garden hose.  The explanation is that the hose is flexible (whereas a length of copper piping is not) and can also be adaptable or made into something else.  I am advocating transferrable skills and what better way is there to demonstrate versatility than through great communications skills?  This is about encouraging our young people to make a connection with their audience to validate their contribution.  That’s communication in its broadest sense through film, illustration or poetry, as well as conversation.

In this virtual world with an emphasis on staying safe and well, it’s all too easy to create a life around mobile devices, virtual reality and social channels.  And of course, gaming and film have become essential planks of some work-based capability assessments.  My challenge here is the extent to which we should be encouraging our younger students to engage in the art of conversation, as well as keyboard skills and Tik Tok.  Isolation and self-learning have their place although unlikely to deliver the ideal solution to deteriorating mental health.  Likewise, the need for conversations around career choices and learning options.  I’ve said so many times before that, “It’s easy to chat about the things you know well.  It’s conversation that defines what you need”.

This article was originally published on Cityparents.co.uk

Cityparents is an award-winning organisation providing expertise and support to over 25,000 working parents in corporate roles.