How can we help young adults succeed today? Higher education? Today’s high unemployment rates for new college grads prove it’s no guarantee. Following your ‘passion’? The majority of young adults have yet to define their real interests and most have little idea of what they want in a career. What’s wrong with this picture?
What if there were a systematic approach connecting all of the “success” pieces– one that would engage young adults starting at age 16 to define their strengths and interests, and help them reach their potential?
In The Driver’s Seat: Work-Life Navigational Skills for Young Adults, is the first book to combine the perspectives of both a ‘Boomer’ and hundreds of Gen Y college grads aged 23-30. It details a specific process guiding students to combine myriad opportunities for focused experimentation, further education and research so that by the time they graduate from college, they have decided on a field, a role and an organization that not only meet their particular criteria, but more importantly give them the highest probability of a successful career.
My research showed that those who were on successful career paths by age 28 shared one thing: they started experimenting with potential interests beginning in high school and early college years. On the other hand, those who focused on school to the exclusion of outside activities were largely unresolved in their careers at the same age.
With so much attention placed on the college admissions process, very little training focuses on helping young people make the connection between their interests, school and long-term work. This book will be a roadmap for students—from the reluctant teen to the worldly college senior—driving them to identify strengths and interests, and find valuable experiences to increase self-awareness and connect school and work in a more structured fashion. Similarly, this book will guide parents to support and aid the young adult in the process.
Confused about how your interests can lead to a career? This book will serve as your guide to investigating various fields and judging how to match what you like to do with the world of work. Advice from more than 100 Gen Y’s who have successfully transitioned from school to career will be accompanied by exercises and strategies as readers move along their own path at their own pace. Part cheerleader, part taskmaster, this is a guide that should be required reading for students aged 16 to 22.
Based on my experience as a career advisor with two successful career blogs and hundreds of Gen Y constituents and colleagues, this book features extensive interviews with college grads in successful careers, corporate recruiters, college admissions professionals and psychologists. In progress now is a career curriculum for both online and brick and mortar colleges and universities, making In the Driver’s Seat a must-have resource for teens and college students as well as their parents.
