November is National Career Development Month

Preparing for a career and entering the workforce are more challenging tasks than ever for young people. They must navigate four job-launch pain points that involve career exposure, career aspirations, career skills, and career experience. These pain points are the result of a fundamental disconnect young people experience between the career preparation K-12 schools offer them and the career preparation they want from K-12 schools.

K-12 school systems can fix this problem by putting in place a systematic approach to career education and career development for students. As National Career Development Month comes to a close, let’s examine these job-launch pain points and suggest a solution.

1. The Exposure Gap

Preparing students for their work lives is an essential part of a K-12 education. Yet all too often students are flying blind as they leave high school. America’s K-12 schools typically provide little practical information to students on potential careers. They also generally don’t provide work experience to help them understand actual pathways to jobs and careers.

A Morning Consult poll reports that less than half of Gen Z high schoolers said they had enough information to decide the best career or education pathway after high school. Two-thirds of high schoolers and graduates said they would have benefited from more career exposure in middle or high school.

This disconnect between what students desire from schools and what schools provide them creates an exposure gap that costs students dearly. It leaves students struggling in the transition from school to work, often taking the form of lower wages when they begin work.

2. The Aspiration Gap

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Programme for International Student Assessment or PISA is the world’s largest information source on young people’s knowledge of reading, math, and science along with their career aspirations. It surveyed around 600,000 15-year-olds in 79 countries, with 32 countries—including the U.S.—requiring students take a supplementary career questionnaire.

“The data indicate that many young people are intent on pursuing jobs that they have little chance of securing,” write the authors of a PISA report on teenagers’ career aspirations. This aspiration gap is especially pronounced for disadvantaged students. Moreover, when young people do have a clear idea about a future career, they name jobs in a narrow set of occupations. The report concludes, “Young people’s career aspirations are often narrow, unrealistic and distorted.”

3. The Skills Gap

The skills gap describes the disconnect between the discrete knowledge and abilities that individuals have and what employers need for the workplace. There are critics of this skills-gap hypothesis. The New York Times called it “mostly a corporate fiction.” Economist Paul Krugman called it a “zombie idea.” Yet survey data collected in recent years from those most familiar with the K-12 education system document that gaps exist between students’ knowledge and skills and and the workforce demands they encounter after high school and college.

For example, Echelon Insights has studied Millennials’ attitudes toward and experience with the K-12 school system. Only 39% of Millennial college attendees believe “they were prepared to succeed in college or post-secondary coursework.” Of those not attending college, only 21% believed they would have been prepared had they decided to attend; 22% believed they left high school ready to succeed in the workforce; and 20% believed they were prepared to navigate life and real-world challenges. From the perspective of young people, more needs to be done to ensure they leave high school and college better prepared for and more hopeful about jobs, careers, and further education.

4. The Experience Gap

Artificial intelligence is remaking the world of work, especially changing how the mundane, repetitive tasks done by entry-level workers are performed. “AI snaps up good entry-level positions [so] entry-level jobs start to look like today’s mid-levels, which demand years of experience,” writes Ryan Craig, Managing Director at Achieve Partners. The result is an experience gap for those ready to launch their careers because the requirements for good entry-level jobs are higher than they were in the past. Craig points to cybersecurity as an example of this trend. Tier 1 entry-level jobs that involve detection and response are now automated. This creates new entry-level analyst jobs with requirements that include at least four years of experience.

An analysis by OpenAI researchers showed how ChatGPT could perform thousands of tasks that cover more than 1,000 occupations defined by the U.S. Department of Labor. The effect is to “sever the career ladder of industries like finance and law,” writes Brooking Institution Fellow Molly Kinder. The problem will only get worse as industry-specific language models develop, with employers adding years of job experience to entry-level job descriptions. This places a higher premium on demonstrated experience or knowing what to do with skills.

A K-12 Career Education Program

Schools need formal career education programs from a child’s earliest years that provide students with opportunities to integrate formal classroom learning with practical learning about careers and work. “So when I talk to kids…about their job options, I’d really encourage them to try the job. And I encourage this for little kids, for medium sized kids, for older kids,” says Emily Oster, Brown University economist.

A career education program for K-12 students has at least four goals:

1. Ensure they are exposed to and explore job and career options through in- and out-of-school activities so they develop sensible career ambitions.
2. Arrange for them to have worked-based experiences like internships and apprenticeships so that they are prepared for what comes after high school, whether a job, more education, or both.
3. Provide them with the knowledge, skills, and information they need so they can imagine a future, plan for it, and develop the self-agency or action orientation they need to secure that future.
4. Build their social capital by connecting them to mentors, personal support, and other professional networks that help them throughout life.

A K-12 career education program should create a virtuous cycle for young people that helps them navigate the four job-launch pain points. It ensures they develop the basics for pursuing opportunity: knowledge—what individuals know, relationships—whom they know; and identity—who they are.

These three basics allow young people to acquire knowledge that is profitable, relationships that are priceless, and a vocation that elevates their self-worth. In short: Knowledge + Relationships + Identity = Opportunity. This approach fosters opportunity pluralism, promoting multiple pathways to jobs, careers, and human flourishing.