Some statistics indicate that about 70-80% of people are not working in the field that they studied.
The questions is why?
The answer is – When career decisions are made by high school learners the career guidance is insufficient for them to make such an important decision.
Over the span of my career of over 24 years in the filed of human resource management, I have heard many reasons why people make the career choices they make. Some of the reasons are better thought out than others but most are simply like the flick of a coin. This means that a lot of young adults then start their careers in a field that they do not enjoy but are expected to perform well in. After all, it is tough to enter the workplace.
For most graduates it is the chicken and egg situation of ‘I need a job but I do not have experience’ while employers would be say ‘what kind of experience do you have for us to offer you a job’.
This leads to great frustration especially when we hear that some of the careers in the next 10 years have not been even invented as we operate in the fast evolving workplace.
This forum is to assist learners to make structured and informed decisions and know that career choices should be well researched because education is expensive in a country like ours. Most importantly though learners should do a great deal of introspection to understand what natural gifts and inclinations they have and this would be helpful in their journey of discovering purpose.