Every year, thousands of school leavers (and their families) will make two important decisions that will significantly impact their life and future.
What course should I take after leaving school?
What job should I do upon graduation?
In answering these two questions, we need to take in to account 21 key challenges faced by school leavers and graduates, which are based on the evidence before us:
1. Work requirements are changing faster than ever
2. Employers cannot find people with the right skills
3. More jobs require post-secondary education
4. Just-in-time hiring is becoming a norm
5. Increasing use of short-term skilled workers
6. The youth labor market has collapsed
7. Growing youth work-experience gap
8. More job seekers going after fewer full-time jobs
9. Lack of full-time employment prospects for graduates
10. Automation requires fewer employed people
11. New job titles created by new technologies
12. A growing emphasis on soft skills
13. Salaries will remain stagnant for a long time
14. People have diverse career paths
15. Careers advice is lagging behind
16. ‘Dream jobs’ don’t exist
17. It is hard to find passion and interest in life
18. Young people do make bad decisions
19. Degrees lack positive employability outcomes
20. Confidence in educational institutions is wavering
21. Navigating the education system is risky business
22. Outdated educations systems
23. Just-in-time learning to get the job done
24. Acquiring outdated skills
25. Mismatch of personal needs and appropriate training
26. More education is not securing better jobs
27. No job application skills to attain full-time work
28. ‘Entry-level’ jobs require years of ‘rich’ experience
29. Degrees don’t guarantee better salaries
30. Degrees lacked value for doing current jobs
31. Degrees can only open that first door
32. Graduates flood the job market at the same time
33. Everyone looks the same on paper
34. Job seekers are forced to take on any job
35. Rushing to acquire that paper qualification
36. Cost of formal education is increasing and expensive
37. Financial support from parents is decreasing
38. Student loan debts are increasing
39. The number of advertised job vacancies is declining
40. Perfectionism is killing our young people
41. Increasing mental health challenges
42. Young people need more skills training, not education
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Call to action
To read more about these 42 key challenges and the Job Certainty Technique to overcome these challenges, go to JobCertainty.com and download your FREE report, “How can young people secure a better future? Taking the guesswork out of finding in-demand, future-ready jobs and occupations”