Timeline and Tasks |
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Katie tells about the
Builders Club activities |
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1. Planning and Preparation |
- Recruit teens and mentors; a 2:1 ratio is fine; start small (3–6 mentors?)
the first time!
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- Devise a schedule for mentors to meet with teens once a week for
6–8 weeks.
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- If in school-affiliated program, sponsoring teacher or counselor sees that
all teens complete MOIS (Michigan Occupational Information System) survey
and have a career folder. It can be found on line at www.mois.org/moistest.html. This
is not essential, however. We have found many of the on-line instruments
below to be more helpful and to require less familiarity with career
terminology.
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- Coordinator provides training and materials for mentors. (That means
taking them through the outline on this page.) It works best if they each
go through the on-line instruments to be used, so that they are familiar
with them. Mentors new to computers and the Web will need more assistance
to help them build confidence.
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2. Interacting with Teens as a Group |
| The steps outlined below are not meant to fit neatly into one meeting each.
Sometimes you will cover more than one at a meeting, and other times a
single step will overlap more than one meeting. You are not bound by
rigid schedules in this process, so try to let things flow naturally
with the enthusiasm of your teens. |
| While mentors and teens can meet individually, the camaraderie of meeting
as a group can be helpful to all—especially for the introductory
meeting. Teens are more used to interacting with adults in a group than as
individuals, so everyone’s shyness and wariness breaks down more
quickly in a group. |
Step 1 |
| Mentors and teens meet as a group for introductions and to do the “What Turns You On” worksheet. You’ll
find that teens often need a lot of prodding to think about what they
enjoy, independent of what they do to please or to meet the expectations
of others. It is as if they have never considered the question before.
Don’t rush this process—it can be very meaningful for them to
have that “I don't know!” light bulb come on in their heads. |
| Mentors call their teens’ parents/grandparents to introduce self,
program, commitment to meet each week for 6–8 weeks, and their
responsibility to get child to workplace doing the shadow or tour.
Share some “specific praise” comments about your first meeting with
their child—they rarely get “official” contacts about
their children that are positive! |
Step 2 |
| Go through Birkman (register as a new user at http://services.review.com/registration/index.asp?body=newuser) and/or Career Key (www.ncsu.edu/careerkey/you/your_options.html) Inventory. The 24-question Birkman
inventory diagnoses one’s interests and style, suggests the kind of
environment in which you would thrive, and links to information on specific,
suitable careers. Career Key diagnoses Holland Personality Types:
Artistic, Conventional, Enterprising, Investigative, Realistic, and Social;
and it suggests careers appropriate to one’s self-described interests,
skills, and values. If possible, and especially if on-line exploration time
is short, print out information for students to take home. (Note that many
on-line instruments require registration with an e-mail address, but you
can usually fake it by making one up.) |
Step 3 |
| Go over typical ladders in all careers—levels of training and
education, “paying your dues,” and getting experience to
advance. Stress how many skills and jobs can relate to very different
career lines. Remind them that we predict they will have 4–6
very different jobs or careers in their lives. It takes some of the
pressure off to know that they will not be stuck forever with their
first choice. It is now normal for a work life to evolve and to have
several switches of field. Women, especially, are prone to take breaks
for childrearing and to work part-time for periods when their children
are young. Girls may want to consider how much flexibility is inherent in
the fields that interest them. |
Step 4 |
| Go over what we know about ourselves—gifts, skills, talents, and
interests. Review the many resources out there to look at your options,
interests, fields and goals. A superb and comprehensive resource is
“Plan the Trip," at www.reachoutmichigan.org/exploringsci/nextstop/4.htm.
It goes into as much detail as you want on all the steps from discovering
yourself through researching, preparing for, and finding a job. |
Step 5 |
| Talk about Multiple Intelligences: HOW are you smart? |
| There is a self-scoring survey at www.surfaquarium.com/MIinvent.htm.
It plots your Naturalist, Musical, Logical, Existential, Interpersonal,
Kinesthetic, Verbal, Intrapersonal and Visual strengths. The exercise
brings home to teens that there is more than one kind of intelligence,
that an inability to function well in a traditional school setting does not
mean they are stupid—but may mean that they are not taking advantage
of their own strong points. |
Step 6 |
| Share ideas on Learning Styles—we all learn in different ways! |
| The Index of Learning Styles page at www2.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILSpage.html
has both on-line and paper-and-pencil versions, plus a handout explaining
your results, describing the differences between active and reflective
learners, sensing and intuitive learners, visual and verbal learners, and
sequential and global learners. There are suggestions for how each type can
help him- or herself, dealing with situations or teachers catering to a
different style. |
| The above and many more resources for self-analysis are gathered at www.reachoutmichigan.org/exploringsci/analysis.html. |
3. Going touring or job shadowing |
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Kiesa and Elizabeth report |
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The Plan |
| Pick out 2 or 3 careers of interest and start looking at tour and shadowing
resources at www.reachoutmichigan.org/.
This is where your own social skills and network of acquaintances can be
invaluable. The closer the experience is to exactly the field the teen is
looking into, the more valuable it will be. Odds are great that the field
will not be on our pre-solicited list of resources! Your job as a
mentor is to dig for someone in the field who might be willing to
allow a work-site visit. Our experience has been that you have
little to lose by making cold calls, especially if it is to a friend
of a friend—any thread of personal connection helps. |
| If a suitable resource is already listed on our site, coach your
teens to call and arrange for a trip. (With middle schoolers, we
have found mentors are more comfortable doing this themselves; it is
too intimidating for most young teens. But it is helpful for any
willing teen to conquer his or her fears and make such an effort.
Then again, many mentors are intimidated by this process—here’s
your chance to grow!) Go over phone skills like how to introduce
yourself, explain what you want to do, make appointment, get
directions, ask if they should dress in any particular way. |
| Encourage parents or grandparents to go along; if this is not
possible and you are transporting teens, be sure to get a written
permission/release from the parents. (Although this is not a formal
school field trip, you may even wish to check with your auto
insurance carrier to make sure it is okay.) Beyond liability
considerations, though, keep in mind that it is tremendously
beneficial to get family members involved in these active
explorations: parents and siblings profit from them, as well. And
they learn how easy it can be to make further such arrangements
themselves. It is almost criminal that so many young people spend
years preparing for a career without having personally investigated
its real-world conditions first! |
The Trip |
| Call parent/grandparent to confirm going, that
they are to provide transportation, and invite them to come. |
| Help children arrange and go on tour or shadow experience. Meet
your child at workplace. |
| An Aside: while there, ask your provider if she or he would be
willing to be posted on our Web site as a career exploration
resource for others. |
The Thank-You |
| Assist teens in writing thank-yous to mail
to their tour or job shadow provider. You may have to help them
with letter format, spelling and sentence structure, addressing
envelopes, etc. |
The Short Paper |
| Help teen write a short, one-page paper following this outline: |
| Introduction Paragraph - What they have learned about their
personalities, skills, gifts and talents. |
Body Paragraph or Two - What kinds of fields seem like a good match
for them;
What they learned from their outing. |
| Concluding Paragraph - What other things they can do
to explore careers—including doing volunteer work, talking with
people, using Web and library resources, and working. |
| Help them remember their lives are their own—they must actively
search for information, check out their possibilities, and use the
resources available to them, if they wish to be happy in life. |
4. Debriefing |
| Mentors should meet once to review their experience. A short
written evaluation is nice, but a group debriefing can be even
better. As the group goes over what went well and what needs to be
changed, they also learn from each others’ experiences. |
| If career mentoring is done in conjunction with a school, it can be
integrated into classes like health, math (salary and life quality),
and English (thank-you’s and short reports). It is a natural for
classes using Michigan’s Career Pathways materials (see www.mois.org/). |
