Best Career Planning Advice for Junior and Senior Girls in High School

Manage Your Life to Get What You Want

Sheri Fresonke Harper
With the recent economy downfall, junior and senior girls in high school should well appreciate the need to have a good paying job with good benefits. The truth about the job market is that good jobs aren't easily found with no experience. So what should junior and senior girls in high school do to get that experience?

#1 Best Career Planning Advice: Know Money

Careers are based on the ability to make money. If you're a high school junior or high school senior girl, learn the cost of living including typical apartment rents, cost of heating and other services, cost of phone, internet and television and clothing, medical care, and dental care. Use the cost of living data to help understand what a job must pay to keep you alive, then you can better appreciate how a good job and benefits contributes to your lifestyle. If high school junior girls and high school senior girls can find any hands on experience working with money including buying groceries for mom, playing Café World on Facebook, participating in Rotary Club, helping collect money for a church or non-profit organization, and doing inventory, etc, that experience can make the difference in gaining that first job opportunity. No matter what you do in life, you will work with money. Any college major with a minor or double major in business can increase your graduation earning potential.

#2 Best Career Planning Advice: Match Your Personality, Interest and Skills to Your Desired Job

High school junior girls and high school senior girls should investigate the library or high school career center and read through the job listings. Many skills like managing money, writing, programming, working with computers, answering telephone calls, making travel arrangements, analyzing or entering data into a computer, etc, are performed by many job categories. Many jobs have increasing levels of performance-be sure to find out what you'll be doing at the top of your career, as well as throughout your career as well as the basic the skills needed to get the job; they might not be what you wanted to do.

#3 Best Career Planning Advice: Plan Ahead for College and Success

If you're planning to go to college, start finding out about scholarships and the requirements to win them. Scholarships and prize money in many careers help make you stand out from the crowd right away. It looks good on your resume to get them.

#4 Best Career Planning Advice: Start Your Resume and Keep it Up to Date

Regardless of whether you are planning to be a mother, work in the factory, sell clothing, or become a lawyer, everything you do in life adds important information that an employer may use to make their hiring decision. Everything you do in life can be a saleable quality if you explain it in a positive manner. Even turn unemployment into a sales pitch for how you can help an employer.

#5 Best Career Planning Advice: Understand Your Interest in Having Babies and Plan Accordingly

If you plan to have children, plan ahead to gain a pool of money needed to support them. Looks for jobs that are amenable to time off to have babies and or offer part time work from home. My sister found the company she worked for dropped the benefits for mother's just about the time she had babies because she was the sole female in the company. Make sure you have alternate medical insurance. Also, I assumed I'd have plenty of time to have babies and was shocked to find it was too late, I required surgery. If motherhood is important to you, make it a priority.

#6 Best Career Planning Advice: Pay Attention to Your Body

Make sure you look your best. If you feel good about yourself, others will notice. Also, if you are one of the people that can't sit still, make sure you seek a job with adequate outlet for that need. If you can't get the time to burn off excess energy at work, do it after work.

#7 Best Career Planning Advice: Think Outside the Box

There is no age when you have to start or complete college, get a job, have babies or retire. I required several years of work before I really knew that if I didn't go to college I'd be seriously bored in life. If you don't know what you want to do in life, take different opportunities until you find a good match. The requirement for life is to make money. Knowing that, career choice is all about how you get what you need out of life. Don't reject a job based on "coolness". Most of the women in my family found good jobs in male dominated areas of the work force; don't be afraid to try something different.

Conclusion:

Although I started out with knowing about money, money is not the only thing a person needs out of life. Make sure that what you do in life is what you want to do as long as it pays the bills.

Published by Sheri Fresonke Harper

Sheri works as a freelance writer, novelist and poet. She worked in the aviation industry at the Port of Seattle and Boeing Company for 20 years as a systems analyst/architect where she edited and wrote over...  View profile

19 Comments

Post a Comment
  • Sawinder Singh3/14/2011

    To know best career options for girls visit
    http://sscomputersnangal.blogspot.com/

  • Sawinder Singh3/14/2011

    To know best career options for girls, visit
    http://sscomputersnangal.blogspot.com/

  • Ali Canary2/10/2010

    Very good advice for girls of any age!

  • C. Jeanne Heida1/20/2010

    printing for daughter :)

  • Kanakadurga Dingari1/18/2010

    Very good info and useful for the parents whose kids are going to college

  • Bethany Marsh1/18/2010

    Excellent job with this!

  • Julie Darleen1/18/2010

    Great advice-I second the thought to do what you love but make sure the bills get paid.

  • Memmay Moore1/16/2010

    Wise words.

  • Jill P. Viers1/15/2010

    This is terrific advice. I liked your take on things. I think you added in some unique perspectives.

  • Sherry Wight1/15/2010

    Excellent suggestions and very important info for girls to consider.

Displaying Comments
Next »

To comment, please sign in to your Yahoo! account, or sign up for a new account.