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Money First: How Students Choose a Career Using Short-Term Thinking

Posted on Aug 22, 2011 - 09:00 AM | Career Prep | Comments (0)

Ask high-school students what they want in a job and you’ll get almost as many answers as there are jobs. “Money,” “Respect,” or “Helping others” often top the list. But repeated research reveals that as important as money is to students, it doesn’t determine the careers they pursue.

That answer is a bit more surprising.

How Students Make Career Choices

What is the top factor influencing student career interests? Would you believe parents?

Parents. Students take direct and indirect cues from their parents when it comes to making a living. They want their parents to approve of their career choices, but they also take an interest in what their parents do at work. This doesn’t always means following in their footsteps, but following in careers closely related, i.e., the child of an engineer going into a math-related field, or the child of a doctor entering the medical or social services profession, etc.
Money. After students find out what their parents think, they want to know how much they’ll be making.
Liking the Job. Everyone wants to like their job, but students in particular don’t want to toil away the hours doing something they don’t like.

Long-term and less exciting goals rank low on the list. Students don’t place career advancement, personal development, or the likelihood of receiving a pension high on their priority list.

How Students Define Status

Although parents are the number one influence when it comes to picking a career, student’s view money and possessions as the key to status and self-esteem. Jobs used to be the key to status in the community, but these days, being a doctor isn’t enough, you must be a well-paid doctor; being a lawyer isn’t enough, you must be a well-paid lawyer.

Students are looking for careers that not only provide status within their community or family, but within their profession.

How RSC Helps Students Choose Their Careers

RSC’s career prep tools take all these factors into consideration. Of course, we don’t put the focus on money (except on how much you’re saving), but we know it’s important.

Parents. Our program keeps you fully involved in your student’s career and college search.
Salary. Our career-research tools reveal the expected salaries for hundreds of jobs.
Liking the Job. Our extensive personality surveys, including the Do What You Are, Interest Profiler and Work Values Sorter, link students to careers that should interest them.
Job Prospects. This tool is greatly appreciated by our parents. What is the likelihood your student can find a job with their chosen degree? No sense spending all that money on a career that’s not growing.

Our career search tools help students realize just what career goals and aspirations are attainable. With the right research, they’ll find a career they like, that improves their self-esteem and that pays them well.

And of course, meets with their parents’ approval.

Don’t forget to read Part One: Money First: How Students Choose a College, or Choose Not to Go at All

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