Can Your Teens Count Jobs as Career Exploration?

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Can Your Teens Count Jobs as Career Exploration?

We were asked recently whether teens can count their jobs during high school as Career Exploration. Many homeschoolers do get jobs or apprenticeships during their high school years. How can we prevent those hours from going to waste on their homeschool transcripts?

First, remember that there’s not ONE right way to homeschool. That’s including Career Exploration. Here are some questions you can ask yourself about counting your teens’ jobs as Career Exploration.

Is it allowed?

• If you have a certifying organization (umbrella school, cover school, charter school), does the school allow it?
• If you are certifying your own family’s transcripts, you can set your own rules.

Is your teen exploring an interest, developing a set of skills, trying on possible “career hats”?

• Each of those areas are good reasons you might want to count your teens jobs as Career Exploration.
• If they are just working at the local hamburger shop for extra cash, it might look like you are padding the transcript to count their jobs as Career Exploration.

How can teens count jobs as Career Exploration on the transcript?

• Have them log hours.

  • They can create a log sheet to record their working hours or keep their paystubs and document hours that way.

• They will be working on a Carnegie unit credit.

  • State requirements for credits is usually 120-180 hours. However, if you logged all your teens work hours it would look like you are padding the transcript. Use discretion. We usually record one hour for credit for every 4 hours our teens work at their jobs.

• It is a good idea for homeschool high schoolers to include job descriptions in their portfolio or records

  • OR include a good job description on their resume.

Can a job be the only Career Exploration teens include on their homeschool transcripts?

• There’s not ONE right way to homeschool, so do what is best for your family.

BUT don’t shortchange them by not allowing them to complete a true EXPLORATION course. Teens often need to take an honest look at:

• what God has done in their lives
• their God-given talents
• what they know about their interests so far
• their abilities
• understanding their values
• their job search skills

All of these are included in our popular Career Exploration course that so many homeschooling families have included in their teens’ high school curriculum. 7Sisters’ Career Exploration Bundle is an encouraging, self-directed, COMPREHENSIVE experience with Career Exploration.

You can help prepare your teen for the job hunt by teaching them good skills about:

• job-hunting skills
• interview skills
• requesting references
• writing cover letters
• Follow all this helpful information with some skills for their first day on the job!

It is nice to capture all your homeschool high schoolers’ experiences, especially those related to Career Exploration on their transcript. This helps give the transcript some sparkle and is a great way to respect the hard work they are doing during high school.

Here are some ideas for courses that count as Career Exploration.

For more on how to handle Career Exploration for your homeschool high schoolers, check out our detailed Authoritative Guide post.

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Can Your Teens Count Jobs as Career Exploration?