Helping your teen get on their career track

I can remember trying to find my first job. I had no idea what to do or how to do it.

Looking back now I wish I had kept better track of all my experiences starting at a much younger age. Even now I find it challenging to remember to keep track of my accomplishments month to month. We know that the habits formed in our youth carry over into adulthood.

I am designing a tool for parents to help their teens keep track of accomplishments throughout high school so that by the time they are in university they have a record they can use for their resume. It will also help them to form the habit of keeping a record of accomplishments.

So I need your help. There a few ways this could be done and I am interested to know which method of tracking you would be most likely to use with your teen?

1. Paper based bound notebook with templates.

2. Web based log in system where the templates are on line and you login to fill them in.

3. An App used on a cell phone.

Please take a minute to answer the survey on the right.

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What problem are we trying to solve?

What problem are we trying to solve?

My former manager asked me this on Thursday. It was in response to the new Public Service Performance Management Agreements, but I think the question applies to what is going on in government and in business. The problem we seem to be trying to solve is perceived apathy- whether it is voter apathy or a workforce that has disengaged, we want people to connect to the systems that they are working within. The funny thing is that people are doing lots and sometimes even more, but yet feel disassociated from the rewards of contributing.

Young people and immigrants (who typically don’t vote) are very active in activities that we would consider to be reflections of engagement- participation in community groups, volunteering, social media, We Day ect. yet they remain hesitant to engage in the formal processes and roles in democracy.

Public servants who are constantly asked to do more with less, have jokes and derision heaped upon them in the media and social media are in fact doing really great jobs delivering service. My road was plowed this morning, even though nasty things are being said about public works budget and management in our local paper.

In the private sector employees still show up at Blackberry and work hard at making it work even though job losses are always looming in the background. The same was true of Nortel when it was in its dying throws.

So what is going on? I think it is that deep down everyone cares about the contribution they are making. No matter what, on some level just saying “to hell with it” isn’t an option. So people work outside and around systems because in the end it is the systems that are broken not the people.