How to Help Your Students Find Their Career Path

Neurodivergent students have a wide range of abilities, and many workplaces would be lucky to hire your amazing students.

But even though we have improved a lot in helping our special education students, unfair differences still exist in the big world. Neurodivergent students can still be perceived as being unable to do well in regular colleges or jobs.

So, how can you help your students to find their career path and do well in it?

#1: Help Your Students Identify Their Talents and Skills

The best way for students to find their career path is to think about what they enjoy doing and what they’re good at. Are they good at drawing? Do they easily solve puzzles? Are they good with computers?

Look at their Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). Assessing the students’ strengths and difficulties is usually done prior to annual IEP meetings so that their plans and goals align with their talents and skills.

If you want to assess your transition students again, here’s a Strengths & Goals Transition Assessment Tool that can help!

This skill assessment can help you identify areas where your students are naturally talented and guide them toward a career path that suits their abilities.

#2: Learn About Their Interests

To understand your students’ interests better, try talking with them about what they enjoy doing, inside and outside school. Find out if they love animals, sports, or music.

You can also use simple surveys and questionnaires to learn more about their likes and dislikes. Ask them about their hobbies, favorite school subjects, or activities they really like doing.

Next, let them think about the kind of work they’d like to do and where they’d like to do it. It can feel overwhelming to think about all the possible jobs out there, so they can start narrowing down choices by asking themselves what they like doing and what they are good at.

Knowing their interests can help point them towards careers that would be a good fit.

#3: Ask Them About Things They Don't Like

Learning about what the students don’t like is equally important as identifying their interests and skills. If they don’t like doing certain things over and over again, it might show areas they should avoid when thinking about jobs in the future.

To help your students figure out what they don’t like, you can ask them about things they don’t enjoy doing and why. Make sure to create a safe and open space where students feel comfortable talking about their feelings and ideas. This will help you see where they might have trouble or where they might lose interest.

You can also let them try out different activities or tasks related to different jobs and see how they would react. Encourage them to share what they don’t like about the activity and help them understand why they feel that way.

This will help your students make better choices about their future careers.

#4: Do a Career Exploration

After helping your students become more aware of their interests, strengths, and difficulties, you can start introducing different career options.

When the students are able to explore different careers, they can learn about what each job is like and if it might be a good fit for them. It’s like trying on different hats to see which one fits the best!

Here are some tips on how to introduce your students to different careers:

Do a career research activity.
Have a full lesson about career.
Give students some readings about what careers are.
Have your students talk to adults they know about their jobs.
Look for videos about different careers.
If possible, visit workplaces or attend job fairs.

There are lots of job opportunities for your special education students! By exploring these options, you can help your students learn more about themselves and what they’re interested in. Here’s a Career Exploration bundle I use for my transition class. It’s a mix of digital, printable, and lesson-format resources that teach about vocational skills, entry-level and professional jobs, and different career clusters!

#5: Match Their Interests to Their Careers

Matching careers with your students’ interests helps them figure out what jobs they might like to do in the future much easier. When they do things they enjoy, they’re more likely to be happy and do well at work.

You can do a simple, survey-like activity to find out what vocational interests your students have, what their ideal work environment would be, and what jobs sound interesting to them!

It’s like finding the perfect puzzle piece that fits just right! But don’t forget to remind your students to take their time and explore different options. It’s okay to find multiple matches to their interests!

#6: Help Your Students Set Their Goals

Setting goals can be a big help when your students are trying to figure out their career path. With goals, they can get their dream job!

If they feel that their dream job is really big and impossible to reach, breaking it into smaller goals can make it easier to work on step by step.

Keep this in mind when you are planning for your students’ transition and IEP goals. Work together with your student and their family to help set goals that are just right for them.

Lastly, remind your students to stay positive and focused on their strengths!

By working together and supporting your students, you can help them find their way to a bright and fulfilling future. Everyone deserves the chance to pursue their dreams, and with the right support, special education students can achieve anything they set their minds to.