Parents: Your New Job Is First Career Guide

By General Education Advice

Last year, I started a subsidiary of The Learning Consultants focused on career counseling: Career Counseling Connecticut.

The work was “mission based.”  So many of my former high school students were now college graduates but floundering in the real world with some variation of unhappiness or lack of success.  I spent a great deal of time figuring out how our company could help navigate the career space.

I was astonished at how fast the company grew (I should note a lot of the growth was also with 30, 40, and even 50 somethings).  I was equally astonished at how little my otherwise smart former students knew about the work world.

Many had grown up in our suburban Connecticut bubble, nearly oblivious to how their parents provided for them.  “My Dad works in business.” or “My mom works in an office.” were very common comments from some of my now career counseling clients.

As these young twenty something career counseling clients came in for career counseling, they surprised me with how little they knew about business; how entitled they felt regarding job expectations; and how clueless they were about career planning.

Parents are definitely not to blame.  Historically, the current generation of parents is far more involved in educating their children than the prior couple of generations.   Putting one more project on the plates of parents seems unfair.  Nonetheless, it is necessary.

The work world is far more complicated now than ever before.  Joining a large corporation and letting the structures of the corporation take care of one’s career is no longer a reality for most.  Moreover, the days when young people took over the farm or followed their parents into their business are mostly over.

So, what to do?  Educate your children about the work world.  The new world of work is radically different than what you entered.  You might even learn some valuable information for your own career.