Findings From the Field: What Students Know (and what they don’t)
If you want a fast snapshot of a student’s “career map,” try this simple prompt:
“What do your parents or caregivers do for work?”
In hundreds of conversations with K–12 students last year, Tomorrow’s Talent asked some version of that question, and the answers were often revealing. Some students could name a job title quickly: “My mom’s a nurse”. Others offered descriptions that were honest, funny, and… extremely broad: “She sits on the computer and goes to meetings,” or “He leaves really early and gets back after I’m done with school.”
These aren’t ‘gotcha’ moments. They are real, honest reactions, and they point to two truths we keep learning across Southern California: Career awareness doesn’t happen accidentally, and career exploration is the missing rung in too many K–12 ladders.
When students don’t have language for the work happening around them, it’s rarely because they aren’t capable. More often, it’s because they’re missing a bridge between what they see (tasks) and what adults mean (careers). “Meetings” could be a project manager, a city planner, a compliance officer, a nonprofit director, an HR specialist, or ten other roles. Without intentional guidance, students can’t connect those dots, and if they can’t name a career, it’s hard to imagine themselves in it.
Familiar Jobs are Visible Jobs
One thing we’ve noticed, students tend to describe caregivers’ work more clearly when it’s a role they encounter in daily life: teacher, nurse, landscaper, or food service. Those jobs come with built-in ‘explainers’ because students interact with them regularly. In contrast, many modern roles (analyst, developer, mid-level manager, operations coordinator) happen behind screens, inside systems, or in environments kids rarely enter. The work is real, but it’s invisible to a 12-year-old, even to 18-year-olds.
This is why career exploration in school matters. National groups focused on career readiness have been sounding a similar alarm: states may value middle school career exploration, but the measures, infrastructure, and sustained support aren’t consistently in place (Education Strategy Group; American Student Assistance). Organizations like the Education Commission of the States emphasize that middle school career exploration should expand students’ awareness and understanding of career opportunities, meaning it has to be designed, not assumed (Education Commission of the States).
In other words, if we’re waiting for career discovery to “just happen,” we’re outsourcing it to chance and a student’s personal network.
Case study: The Water Industry (aka “the jobs nobody told me about”)
Nowhere is the “invisible careers” problem as clear as in the water industry. Tomorrow’s Talent works closely with employers in water—and we hear a consistent theme: many employees learn about these careers through family or close community ties. If no one in your circle works in water, you may never hear that it’s even an option.
When we introduce water careers to students, many start at zero: “Wait… people have jobs doing water?” And yet water careers are stable, skilled, mission-driven roles, often with clear pathways from high school programs into certifications, apprenticeships, and long-term employment.
This isn’t just a local issue. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency notes that roughly one-third of the water sector workforce may be eligible to retire in the next 10 years, in a phenomenon called the Silver Tsunami by many. This increases urgency around recruiting and training new talent (U.S. EPA, “Water Infrastructure Sector Workforce”). In its 2024 report to Congress, the Interagency Water Workforce Working Group describes likely staffing shortages within the next five to ten years that could stress the nation’s ability to operate critical water infrastructure (U.S. EPA, Interagency Water Workforce Working Group Report to Congress).
But here’s the hopeful part: We’ve repeatedly seen what changes the conversation.
What flips the switch for students
It’s rarely a slide deck. It’s not a fun video. Nor is it even an engaging and active educator.
It’s the setting plus the people.
When students tour a facility and meet a water professional, especially an entry-level operator, in the place where the work actually happens, something clicks. A job becomes a real environment. A title becomes a person. A ‘category’ becomes a story. Suddenly, students can imagine themselves learning the skills, joining the team, and building a life around meaningful work.
That’s the power of career exposure when it’s done well. It turns the abstract into the attainable.
Motivation comes next: “Okay, I’ve heard of it… But why would I choose it?”
Awareness is step one. Motivation is step two.
Once students can picture a career, they immediately start asking (explicitly or silently):
Will I have purpose?
Will I have flexibility?
What will my day actually look like?
How do I get started—and what comes after that?
This is where many students gravitate toward highly visible careers—creator/influencer, professional athlete, educator—not because they’re unrealistic, but because they feel understandable. Students think they know the lifestyle expectations, the path, and the payoff.
And honestly, that makes sense. Even adults are drawn to careers we can picture.
There’s also evidence that “influencer” isn’t just a throwaway aspiration. One Adobe survey found that one in three people in the U.S. ages 18–30 want to be influencers, and many believe influencer-focused classes in school would be beneficial (Adobe). That data supports what we see in student conversations: visibility drives interest.
Our job isn’t to roll our eyes at what students say they want to be and redirect them to more ‘realistic’ options. It’s to translate their desires into real goals.
‘Influencer’ can be a doorway into marketing, entrepreneurship, graphic design, video production, analytics, brand strategy, communications, and more; if students learn the time reality and team reality behind the highlight reel. When we help students map a dream to the skills underneath it, we don’t shrink their ambition; we expand their options.
What Schools and Employers Can Do
If career exploration is the missing rung, the fix isn’t a single event. It’s a set of repeatable experiences that make careers visible early and often.
Teach “career categories” alongside tasks. Help students translate “goes to meetings” into families of roles (project management, operations, public administration, client services). This is vocabulary-building, not career tracking.
Make workplace exposure normal, not special. Tours, jobsite visits, and “day-in-the-life” videos work best when students see real settings and real people, not just descriptions.
Start with roles students can touch—and then widen the circle. Use familiar jobs as a bridge: “You know a nurse, here are six other healthcare roles you haven’t met yet.”
Show the ladder. Students want purpose and flexibility, but they also want clarity. Spell out the steps from high school courses to internships, certifications, apprenticeships, and entry-level jobs, especially in industries like water, where pathways are real and urgent (U.S. EPA, Interagency Water Workforce Working Group Report to Congress).
Invite employers to be humans, not presenters. The most effective employer engagement is relational: stories, Q&A, tools on the table, and honest answers about what makes the job rewarding.
The Bottom Line
What students don’t know isn’t a verdict; it’s a design challenge.
When career awareness doesn’t happen accidentally, we can build it intentionally. And when we treat career exploration as a missing rung (not an optional extra), we give more students the language, exposure, and confidence to step into pathways that fit their interests and their future.
Tomorrow’s Talent has been connecting students to career opportunities, internships, and apprenticeships since 2020, and one of the biggest lessons we’ve learned is simple: when students can see a path, they’re far more likely to walk it.