A visitor
Somebody is visiting who does a job you find interesting. You have a few minutes.
What do you ask?
Step 1: What Would You Do?
There is often more than one good answer. Pick one and see what happens.
A job that sounds amazing
You have seen a job that looks brilliant online. Everybody doing it seems to love it.
What is worth remembering?
Step 2: What That Was
The name for what you just worked out.
The best question about any job is what a normal day looks like. Job titles tell you almost nothing.
Every job has a boring part
Every single one. Asking about it is not rude and the answer is much more useful than the highlights.
Most jobs are invisible
You see teachers, drivers and shop staff. You do not see the people who keep the water clean or write the software. Most work happens out of sight.
How people got there
Ask how they ended up doing it. The answer is almost never a straight line, and knowing that takes the pressure off.
Step 3: Try It
These ones do have right answers.
Which Questions Tell You Something?
Sort by how much you learn from the answer.
You are asking somebody about their job.
Tap something to move it.
- Empty
- Empty
Step 4: Quick Check
Two questions, then you are done.
Question 1 of 1
Why is asking about the boring part useful?
Step 5: Your Life Mission
Something to do away from the screen. Nobody is checking.
Interview one person
- Pick somebody whose job you are curious about.
- Ask what a normal day looks like, and what the boring part is.
- Ask how they ended up doing it.
Why: Three questions is enough to learn more about a job than any amount of reading.
Step 6: What You Learned
- Ask what a normal day looks like.
- Ask about the boring part. Every job has one.
- Ask how they got there — it is rarely a straight line.
For the grown-up
Arranging a few real conversations with people in different jobs is worth more than any careers resource at this age, and most people are glad to talk about their work.
Emphasising the non-linear routes matters. Children who believe careers are chosen at fifteen and followed for life carry unnecessary anxiety about the choice.
Include jobs that are invisible to children and jobs that did not exist twenty years ago. Both widen the sense of what is possible.