Need help to find your first job?
Research shows that your first job will likely not be your last, and it may not even be your ultimate career choice. Discover your best fit by trying different things and exploring your options. There are online job boards, school career services, and professionals in your field that you might be able to meet with to discuss the options in your area. Volunteering can be another good way to get involved with an organization or business while you're still in school and need flexible hours.
Wondering what the career landscape looks like? Here’s a list of some possible career paths to get you thinking.
- Computers and Mathematics - expected to grow quickly, and not just within information and communication tech, but also across other sectors like investors, media, and entertainment
- Advocacy - start with the resources here on how to organize a successful project, build your team, and gather support.
- Business - There are a wide variety of enterprises and services encompassed here. Among them, supporting entrepreneurship through mobile payments, renewable energy, and bringing farmers to market.
- Agriculture - Speaking of farmers, collecting high-quality produce and distributing and delivering it continues to be an essential approach to efficient consumption and an increasingly challenging one!
- Science - use of science and tech in medicine, academia, development, and climate change and sustainable growth is on the rise.
- Education - central to development and to economic growth. There has been progress in education and equitable access to it, but there's much more to do.
- Finance - access to funds helps families and businesses to accumulate assets and make productive choices.
- Management - motivating others, setting goals, and working with people will all be key ingredients in the career path of your choice.
- Social work, mental health, personal care aides - work with a range of clients and in a wide variety of areas.
- Nursing/Medicine - no question, healthcare workers help you with all walks of life and there are many entry points.
Before you dive into any field…
Do your research.
Set your expectations.
Set your goals. Even if your goal is to get office experience, a good recommendation, or it’s simply a jumping off point, decide how you’d like to approach the work.
Find people doing a job you might like to do and ask questions.
Once you’ve found an entry point, keep asking questions, take classes, and make sure that you’re doing more than the minimum amount.
Find your nearest career center, but also look around you. Sometimes you’ll see something in your immediate area that needs fixing, and you can start there.
Want to learn more about advocacy and entrepreneurship? Check out these resources.
If there aren’t many employment opportunities near you, more options for digital work may be available to you. There are non-profit businesses whose mission it is to reduce global unemployment by hiring young people like you and teaching useful tech skills. Find out more about impact sourcing in your area.
