Imagine yourself standing in front of a signpost. There are signs pointing in nearly every direction and as you stand there, you have to make a choice about which direction you are going to take. When you are faced with this immediate and seemingly overwhelming challenge, it feels like a wrong choice can ruin your life.
This is what leaving school can feel like for a number of our students. Some of our students know exactly what they want to do when they leave school – they are going on to full-time work, tertiary study, or vocational study. They’ve stood at the signpost and made a decision. Just over half of these students will go on to do exactly as they had planned – the others will encounter setbacks, such as not being accepted into their chosen course of study, or will try their chosen pathway for a while before deciding that it really isn’t what they want to do with their lives.
Change can be wonderful. It can also be terrifying. Leaving school would have to rank as one of the biggest life changes that our students will experience. So how do we prepare them for a successful transition from the ordered world of school to the busy-bustling world of making decisions that is life after school?
One of the ways that we can help our students make a successful transition from school to life after school is to prepare them. Students can become so fixated on finishing their last test that they cannot see the bigger picture. They need us to help them see the bigger picture – leaving school is another step forward in the journey of life. By encouraging our students to think and dream about life after they have finished school and by engaging them in discussions about their fears, thoughts and dreams, we can help prepare our students for what happens next. The support and discussion is invaluable but intangible – students can’t produce the discussion they had with you to support their job application.
About two thirds of graduating students do not have a CV or resume prepared when they leave school. The one third that does have a CV or resume has one they prepared to get a part-time job in their senior years of schooling and haven’t updated it for quite some time. One of the simplest ways we can prepare our students for life after school is to equip them with the necessary paperwork for surviving the adult world. They need to know what a CV is, what a resume is but more than that, they need to have their own CV or resume prepared, ready to be used to help them achieve their goals of further study or employment.
I went searching for tools to help students prepare their CV and resumes. There was a lot of advice – much of it contradictory and often aimed at someone who has at least a little bit of work experience. I could find very few resources that helped a student fresh out of school put together their CV. I could find no resources that helped a student fresh out of school create their CV and incorporate a Biblical worldview. So we created one. We have developed a Biblical worldview resource that will help your student or child to prepare and write a CV, resume, cover letter and references. The unit covers subject matter such as online presence in social media and networking, integrity, mentoring, work experience, achievements, volunteering and extracurricular activities.
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