Co-creating Career Exploration Experiences for Students

Helping students broaden their understanding of the world of work before exploring specific career choices in greater depth.

GCP partners with schools and educational organizations to design programs that help students explore career fields, understand different types of work, and connect career possibilities with their interests, capabilities, and what matters to them.

Activities may include:

• Exploring career fields, occupational groups, and professional roles.
• Engaging with professionals and asking questions about their work.
• Learning about jobs, work environments, and the capabilities different careers require.
• Taking part in age-appropriate career exploration activities, scenarios, or tasks.
• Reflecting on their experiences to identify careers or fields worth exploring further.

Outcomes: Students broaden their understanding of the world of work, identify directions worth exploring further, and gain more real-world information to support their career development.

Helping students move from learning about careers to experiencing real-world tasks, activities, and situations related to different professions.

GCP partners with schools, educational organizations, professionals, and industry partners to design activities that allow students to explore careers through experience. Through these experiences, students gain a clearer understanding of real work, the capabilities different roles require, and their own level of interest in different fields.

Activities may include:

• Taking part in tasks or scenarios that simulate aspects of real work.
• Joining hands-on workshops with professionals or industry practitioners.
• Observing work environments and learning how different professions operate in practice.
• Working on problems, projects, or challenges related to specific career fields.
• Reflecting on their experiences to identify what interests them, what they do well, and what they need to explore further.

Outcomes: Students gain real-world experiences that help them understand careers more deeply, recognize their initial level of fit, and identify what they need to explore or validate further before making education and career choices.

Every school has different objectives, student groups, and educational contexts. That is why not every career guidance need can be addressed through a standard program.

GCP partners with schools and educational organizations to co-design career guidance and career experience programs around each partner’s specific needs. Programs can be tailored to students’ developmental stages, educational objectives, career themes, duration, available resources, and implementation context.

The partnership process may include:

• Clarifying the needs, student groups, and challenges the program should address.
• Defining program objectives and expected outcomes.
• Selecting relevant career themes and experience formats.
• Designing activities, tasks, projects, or challenges for students.
• Engaging professionals, industry practitioners, and relevant partner organizations.
• Developing an implementation approach that fits the partner’s timeline, resources, and context.
• Designing reflection, evaluation, and post-program outcomes.
• Where appropriate, helping students define learning goals, build a learning and experience roadmap, and create a progress-tracking tool.

Outcomes: A program designed around each partner’s educational objectives, student needs, and implementation context, with meaningful outcomes that can continue to support students beyond the career guidance experience.