Help My Child Find a Career Path

“I wish we had met Daryl before my son started college. We would have saved $60,000 in tuition in the year wasted on a major that was definitely not a fit for my son. Fortunately, the career planning system devised by The Learning Consultants has saved him from what would have been a miserable career.”
— Jim H., Branford, CT

Do you need help transitioning your child from college to career?

Given the radical change in the world economy, Connecticut parents are now considering career implications more strongly when deciding to invest their hard earned money in their children’s education. Career counseling is now becoming a needed investment before, during, and after college.

We note that “fit” is and always will be an important consideration for college choice. But, practical reality demands that figuring out your child’s potential college major/career path becomes a bigger part of college selection.

Most significantly, over the last few years, we have provided career counseling to hundreds of unemployed or underemployed college graduates in the New Haven to New London area. Many have wondered why their colleges and high schools spent such minimal attention on their potential careers.

Even more troubling, these recent college graduates had little or no idea about the realities of the working world. Their schooling simply did not translate into figuring out what they wanted to do, in large part, because the subject had never been discussed.

Their emotions ranged from despair (“All this education and no place to go!”), to anger (“Why didn’t my parents or my schools help me figure this out?”), to cynicism about careers (“I hear that the working world is horrible, so I hope to avoid it for as long as possible!”).

The Parents’ Guide to Career Planning for Your Twentysomething: How Parents Can Help Their College and Post-College Age Children Find Careers That Lead to Happiness and Success by [Capuano, Daryl]

What we provide

(1) Career profiling tests

The level of self-awareness for most teens is limited, at least in relation to career counseling.

(2) Interactive career counseling session

Our expertise stems from taking the data from our career tests plus interviewing our clients to craft a customized vision and strategy

(3) Distinct outcomes

  • Discover which colleges and programs will suit your child’s intended career path.
  • Understand the “investment decision” related to college and career income in terms or ROI (return on investment
  • Determine what “next steps” for career exploration make sense

More thoughts?

Read further if interested in more thoughts on the challenges faced by children heading into college.

Directionless Liberal Arts Majors

True to conventional wisdom, those studying the liberal arts experienced a greater proportion of angst. As products and fans of a liberal arts education ourselves, our young liberal arts friends had our sympathies.

They were often in a funk regarding their college major. While they liked certain subjects, they heard anecdotal feedback about unemployed English and history majors and were starting to worry.

Disillusioned Business Majors

While business majors seemed to be better suited to choose a major among their more limited options and knew they were heading into “business” – whatever that means – they, too, also had little idea about the real world of work.

Indeed, their disillusionment was equally profound. Many of these students and graduates had a distorted view of careers. They envisioned running a large entity, a la Bill Gates, leading numerous employees, and performing big-picture, fascinating work every day.

They were beginning to realize that the vast majority of entry-level jobs in the business world were contained in faceless cubicles in mundane corporations doing repetitive operational tasks.

Any dreams of graduating and soon leading the next Microsoft were vanishing quickly. In addition, many business majors had hoped that the declaration of “going into business” would be a sufficient answer to the question of “What do you want to do?” They now understood that a business job might mean an accountant crunching numbers for a large insurance corporation in a big city. Or it might mean creating layouts for a three-person marketing firm in a small town.

They were discovering that, even though they were more practically oriented than their liberal arts peers, they, too, had no idea what they wanted to do.

Our work has involved guiding our parents and students in practical fashion to find work that both provides income in the short run but career direction in the long run.

If you are parent of a student, our full suite of services can be located on the site of The Learning Consultants. But, if you are single focus is helping your child decided upon a career path, then simply call 860 510-0410 to discuss.