The university graduate living at home and working at a low-paying job is threatening to move from a funny-sad stereotype to a crippling national trait - unless Canadians at all levels begin to change the way we think about career development.

For more than a generation, parents and teachers have focused on getting kids into the post-secondary system because research showed us that higher education was the key to higher wages and "better" jobs.

That template suited an economy built on long-term jobs, on careers built over decades with one employer.

But we're discovering - to our cost - that this strategy doesn't work in an atmosphere of global competition, world-wide skilled worker shortages, new jobs, specialties and companies flashing into existence seemingly overnight, to be replaced by the next new industry before we can blink.

Photo illustration
College graduates often pay the price for education decisions by being stuck in low-paying jobs.

Our national failure to react to the changing times has resulted in a generation with the "career stutters" - a large number of well-educated youngsters who can't seem to settle on what it is they want to do in life, who flit from job to job, or take jobs as barristas or sales clerks while they sort out what they really want to do.

"We need a national re-think," says Donnalee Bell, a consultant with the Canadian Career Development Foundation (CCDF) and co-author of a report released this summer on career development services for Canadian youth.

"We know 60 to 70 per cent of youth don't access career development services. We know 60 per cent of kids shift their major or drop out of university."

Add to that the fact young people can expect to change jobs seven to 10 times in their worklife and change careers two or three times.

Such career stuttering not only affects the economic fortunes of individuals, but is a drag on our productivity as a nation. As a nation, can we continue to enjoy the good life - improve our standard of living and compete globally - if we waste time and energy in this way?

Canada isn't alone in this challenge.

Around the world, nations seeking to compete globally face severe shortages of technicians, coupled with high rates of underemployment of college and university graduates, says Kenneth Gray, a professor of workforce education and development at Penn State University in his report, Skills Shortages, Underemployment and Youth: The Quiet International Dilemma.

"Few involved want to talk about the worldwide growing numbers of underemployed four-year college graduates," he writes. "It is somewhat of an embarrassment to public policymakers, government officials, universities and university graduates. It hints of educational and economic development policy gone wrong, of public investment wasted and unkept promises made to youth."

Education was once seen as a personal and national economic salvation. Consequently, post-secondary enrolment dramatically increased in developed nations.

In 2003, 44 per cent of Canadians in their early 20s graduated from post-secondary programs, up from seven per cent in 1999, according to Statistics Canada.

Other countries have similar records. Gray points out that between 1950 and 1993, the percentage of youth enrolled in colleges and universities increased in Sweden from four per cent to 35 per cent, in France from four per cent to 50 per cent, and in the U.S. from six per cent to 81 per cent.

But he also notes a disconnect: In the U.S. at the same time, 57 per cent of the workforce were in blue-collar trades, 25 per cent were technicians and only 18 per cent were professionals.

This has created a surplus of people with degrees, but a shortage of university graduates with the skills needed by employers - and hence, underemployment.

Estimates are that 30 per cent of college graduates in the U.S. in the late '90s were in jobs requiring high school-level skills. And that has sparked a trend for these grads to return to school to upgrade their skills to meet real-world requirements.

There's plenty of blame to spread around. Gray cites "poor decisions by both those charged with economic/workforce development, as well as students and their parents."

"The business community has been guilty of not being good communicators in terms of their needs," says John Winter, CEO of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce. Consequently, students, parents and guidance teachers don't know the variety of career options, and teens are steered into educational institutions that continue to churn out grads without the needed skills.

Meanwhile, employers are reluctant to invest in employee training because better-trained workers are more apt to be poached by competitors.

"It's scary," he says, looking at the labour market 10 years down the road.

As it stands now, many teens - and their parents - don't know the variety of jobs available or the skills needed to succeed in them, and don't have access to career development counsellors who can advise them, Bell points out.

Canadian policy makers are beginning to address the situation (the first summit involving politicians, educators and labour market organizations was held in 2003), but changing Canadian policy is like steering the Queen Mary - it takes a lot of time and distance during which time the world sails on by.

"Our challenge is education is a right of provinces, and what really needs to happen is a pan-Canadian approach," says the CCDF's Bell. It means a change at every level - students, parents, primary, secondary and post-secondary educators, politicians and organizations representing labour and business.

Career development should be on the agenda for both the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC) and Forum of Labour Market Ministers, Bell adds.

She also advocates national standards for career development practitioners and that they be employed in school systems to help students think about lifelong career management.

"There are a lot of stellar programs and tons of gifted career-development practitioners," she says, but while some youth are getting exemplary service, the majority of youth are not using these services at all.

Bell also advocates a coherent national career-development strategy that would feature, among other things, laws guaranteeing students career-development services, requiring one course on career development in education degrees and that career development be introduced as early as Grade 6.

"A critical point is Grade 6," she says, but "in elementary school and junior high, career guidance is virtually non-existent."

In junior high, options begin to narrow as students choose courses. It's not unusual for high-school graduates to discover they've made a mistake in choosing courses that means they have to backtrack to make up credits to meet requirements for post-secondary programs.

It's also not unusual that students are steered into post-secondary studies based on subjects in which they achieved good marks, rather than choosing a field that suits their personality and talents as well as future employability.

Although many students are floundering, Bell and Lynne Bezanson, co-author of Career Development Services for Canadian Youth: Access, Adequacy and Accountability, found "pockets of innovation" across the country.

Bell lauds Ontario for developing a guide on apprenticeships and skilled trades.

"Always before, the attitude was: 'You go find the employer, then we'll help.' But we're talking about 17-, 18-, 19-year-olds without many of the life skills that would allow them to approach and negotiate with employers," she says. And with no master list of apprenticeships and employers, students were stymied. Now apprenticeships are multiplying.

She also gives kudos to the B.C. Chamber for its research projects on career development and employer partnership roundtables.

"We're trying to find community-based solutions," agrees the chamber's Winter.

So is the B.C. government, which is asking stakeholders how best to design a new $90-million tax employer credit program, part of a $400-million investment in training, education and skills development. The chamber advocates that money be spent on increasing skills of the existing employee base.

And certainly, parents and students must be part of the solution.

"Generally, graduates that have particular specialized skills (technical, linguistic) are in high demand," says Marc-David Seidel, an assistant professor of management at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia. "But the average student doesn't have those skills."

Seidel and Bell both suggest students taste a variety of options on the career menu.

At an early age, parents can get their friends and colleagues to talk to their kids about the good and bad aspects of their chosen field of work, by arranging job-shadowing and internships. Teens can build on that knowledge by volunteering and seeking out a variety of after-school jobs.

Seidel doesn't see changing majors in university as a bad thing. "University is the place for experimentation" with various career options, he says.

He advises university students to devote one day a month to exploring those options through shadowing experiences, internships, interviewing people about their jobs, volunteering and using their campus career services centre databases.

And when choosing a summer job, he advises: "Don't concentrate on getting cash, but on increasing exposure to potential employers or building technical or linguistic skills.

"Getting out there and getting experience is more helpful in understanding what you want to do, as opposed to the results of an aptitude test" that purports to identify careers for which you are suited.

Young people are often naive in making career choices, he says. "They have glorified images of certain careers. For instance, they're often surprised when I tell them that if they want a career as an investment banker, it's going to mean they'll have to work 80 to 100 hours a week."

A realistic preview can steer students away from choices that aren't fits with their values or lifestyle, preventing some of the early-career stuttering.

Business can address the challenge on a policy level through their associations and professional organizations, which have the wherewithal to research conditions and solutions, the connections to influence education courses and the clout to change policy.

And on an individual level, business owners can address training and career management in their own organizations, creating opportunities for students to job-shadow, intern and volunteer, and talking to young people about the rewards and rigours of the field.

And they can invest in their young employees. If no one will invest in training for fear their employees will be poached by a competitor, soon everyone will be drawing from the same impoverished pool of talent.

Politicians, educators, business and labour organizations can work together to establish standards and practices to address the situation.

And in 10 years, when today's junior high-school students start entering the job market, they'll get the chance to sing instead of stutter.

(Sharon Adams can be reached at sharon@businessedge.ca)