The Foundation for Young Australians is a national non-profit organisation dedicated to all young people of Australia. For a number of years now the FYA has partnered with the Australian Government as part of the National Career Education Strategy. The FYA website is a great place for parents and students to use as a preparation starting point when thinking about the future after school. The key message from FYA is that… “the world of work is changing.” Today’s 15-year-olds will most likely move through 17 changes of employer across 5 completely different careers during their career life. In an Australian economy with more than 1,000 different occupations, the future world of work might appear confusing and even threatening for young people at school today but it is important to note that many of these jobs are related; in that they involve very similar skill sets, tasks and environments. By analyzing 2.7 million job advertisements the FYA has managed to group all of these occupations into 7 main areas or ‘job clusters’.  These clusters are the generators, the artisans, the carers, the informers, the coordinators, the designers and the technologists. (I will share more on these job clusters in coming weeks). With a workforce that is changing young people need to look at clusters of jobs to navigate their future career lives. With a young population more educated than ever before the average transition time from full-time education to work is now 2.6 years (compared to one year in 1986). Young people are finding that their career management skills (like CV writing and interview skills) are a barrier to entering full-time work. FYA’s recent research has identified four factors that accelerate entry into full-time work. These are: building the necessary enterprise skills in their education (we at CCPS are doing this), having relevant work for pay employment experience – yes this means getting and maintaining a part time job (careers@ccps.qld.edu.au can help with this), having a job in a future focused cluster and an optimistic mindset (all of us as staff and parents can help to foster this). Remember my name is Steve and I’m here to help (sorry Kevin Rudd) email me or call me on 5437 5881 and we can start the process. Have a great weekend. Steve Cuthbert