Future Paths: Your Guide to Skilled Trade Jobs

As students enter the more complex worlds of middle and high school, families begin to plan for life beyond K-12 education. Between challenging academics, sports, clubs, and other extracurricular activities, students and parents are busier than ever during these years. 

Many schools focus on college preparation as the next step, and while that’s a great path to pursue, it’s only one of many potential options for a young graduate. Options that do not require a bachelor's degree include skilled trade jobs, military enlistment, and other vocations.

Skilled Trades: Jobs with Purpose

Life can take many different directions in young adulthood, and every option is worth exploring—especially skilled trade jobs. Trade and vocational schools offer pathways to meaningful careers that our modern world relies on every day, from electricians and plumbers to dental hygienists. Learning about and becoming licensed for skilled trade jobs is more affordable than going to a traditional four-year college, and can often be completed in two years or less.

Skilled trade jobs are essential to the functioning of our society at large. People working in these in-demand professions grow and prepare our food, plan and build our communities, help us feel and look our best, and ensure the lights stay on, water stays running, and our homes stay safe.

Empowerment, Not Anxiety

Considering a future beyond K-12 school can make students and their parents feel overwhelmed, anxious, and indecisive. This detailed information about career paths that can be pursued without a bachelor’s degree makes planning feel more manageable. This blueprint to dozens of careers gives families the information they need to take the next step without feeling overwhelmed, saving their students time and money and giving them a starting point for their job research. 

Armed with the knowledge of dozens of potential paths, families will be empowered to research more detailed local information about trade schools, apprenticeship opportunities, and the realities of developing transferable skills within their chosen field. This base level of knowledge makes it much simpler to focus on the skilled trade jobs that most align with a student’s interests and on making informed decisions during each step of the process.

A Day in the Life

This book is an easy-to-understand resource for envisioning a student’s potential paths beyond middle and high school. This full-color guide dives into different skilled trade jobs, including information on how to get started, daily general tasks, job opportunities, and tools of the trade, as well as questions and activities that help gauge whether a student’s interests align with a particular vocation. 

Career paths are categorized based on their function, making it easy for families who want to explore options within a general field or area of interest. Dive into jobs outlined within the following categories: Build & Repair, Move & Maintain, Health & Care, Forestry & Farming, and Make & Style.

A Blueprint for Guidance Counselors

This book isn’t just helpful for parents and students. The career opportunities explored, along with their categorization, could be a helpful blueprint for a system run by guidance counselors to help students make the most informed decisions about their futures. This structured resource allows counselors to spend more time and energy talking through skilled trade jobs with students and their families, and less on researching detailed information about these different trades. Plus, it gives students a potential map of what the future could look like, opening up their mind to the possibilities of adulthood.

Ease Anxiety About the Future

Teens and tweens have enough to be anxious about. Empowering families with information about the future takes one thing off of their plate at a time when they’re being called to level up in academics and sports participation, social dynamics become more complex, and the push-and-pull of independence and needing support feels like an impossible tension.

Start small by perusing this guide to skilled trade jobs together, and asking exploratory questions about hobbies and interests, and how they might translate into a career. The more frequently you discuss this topic in a low-stakes and casual way, the more prepared students will feel, and the more confident they'll be in their decisions around what skilled trade jobs to potentially pursue post-high school.

Finding the Right Fit

Salary expectations can vary between states, as well as union vs. non-union skilled trade jobs, so it’s worth it to do an internet search using the job titles provided in each section to get a sense of what tradespeople in your area charge for their expertise.

In addition to salary research, students can visualize whether or not each of these skilled trade jobs may be right for them by answering a handful of questions, and envisioning what a day might look like for each profession. For example, a student interested in cosmetology must consider whether they’re comfortable on their feet all day, or if they like chatting with people. Meanwhile, a potential future electrician needs to ponder whether they’re precise and accurate, with an interest in math, and might want to try taking apart a lamp to see how it works, or building a basic circuit kit.

Because our society relies on a wide variety of skilled trade jobs to function, there's sure to be an occupation for every kind of young adult.

Planning for the Next Step

Each school chapter brings new complexities, challenges, and excitement for students and their parents to tackle. Make planning the transition into young adulthood simple and straightforward by giving families and administrators information about skilled trade jobs that may be missing from traditional college prep. The better prepared your families and staff are to accommodate questions from students regarding their post-high school plans and potential skilled trade jobs, the easier the transition into adulthood will be for every student.