Starting Young

Starting Young

Developing children’s interest in the workforce has begun to start younger and younger – and for a good reason. As reported in The New Hampshire Union Leader, children develop interests and career dreams as early as kindergarten. Because of this, many opportunities are being created by companies to meet children where they are, in schools.

Companies across the country have already been making efforts to introduce their work to prospective middle and high school students directly. As the Leader reported, through an innovative initiative from Barbara Hopkins of BioFabUSA and The University of New Hampshire’s Center for Mathematics, Science and Engineering Education, students will discover new careers and be able to shape their path to achieve long term career aspirations starting at a younger age.

Shelving the notion of traditional the “Career Day” where companies visit with students, Hopkins and UNH have developed custom lesson plans to support New Hampshire teachers’ efforts to spark passion in their students. Engaging students ranging in ages kindergarten through 12th grade, Hopkins hopes to specifically encourage careers in life sciences.

As was reported in a 2018 survey by Korn Ferry of 5,000 professionals, boredom on the job can be a significant contributing factor as to why employees make multiple job changes during their career. This supports the idea that by introducing a variety of career passions at a younger age, future employees will be able to choose more satisfying careers, decreasing the likelihood of short-term tenures and helping with employee retention.

We applaud efforts to encourage children to explore their career options long before they embark on a post graduate job search. The time spent now on defining their interests, and developing their innate strengths, will result in a bright future for them and a robust and enthusiastic workforce for employers to choose from in the years to come!

Read the full article here: What’s Working: Finding tomorrow’s workers in kindergarten? –New Hampshire Union Leader