Some teens are close to their families and look forward to holiday visits with extended family and close family friends.  Other teens and even young adults can find this intense immersion into the adult world to be something between terrifying and a complete snooze.

Make holiday visits work for you.  Don’t waste time wishing you were with your friends at the mall.  Use family gatherings to develop your career awareness or explore. 

By engaging in career conversations, you not only expand your knowledge of jobs but also practice talking with adults.  Given the amount of time you spend online or with your friends, you may be conversationally disabled.  Being able to talk about a job is crucial to getting one.

You can leave holiday gatherings feeling dazed--or that you made good use of what you thought would be time wasted. Here are some tips: 

Turn the tables:   For older teens and young adults, some relative will surely ask, “So, were are you going to college?” or “What are your career plans?”  Don’t fall for the question. Turn the tables. It's easy to do as adults generally love to talk about themselves.  By saying, “I don’t know.  Tell me how you made your career decisions and moves,” you won’t have to disclose your own indecision and you may learn a whole lot—including what not to do.

Don’t make a career choice in a vacuum:  The more jobs you know about, the more likely you are to be able to find ones that will interest you.  Increasing your awareness of different kinds of jobs expands your ideas about how to match your interests with paid work.  If there are just 6 people sitting around the table, you can probably learn about a couple dozen fields and nearly a hundred jobs.

Amp up lagging table conversation:  Throw out a question like, “What’s the most different or weird kind of job you’ve ever heard about?” or “I'm interested in working in the golfing industry.  Can you help me brainstorm different jobs that might happen there?” 

Asking, "What's the dumbest career move you every made?" will clear heads of turkey induced stupor.  Be sure to follow up with, "What's the smartest career decision you ever made?"  For adults, regrets can be psychological tar pits. Don't let family get stuck in the negative past.  Move them back into the present and let them ruminate on their good choices.

Feel like fleeing?  Instead, give yourself a quota of 3-5 adults to ask questions like, “Do you like your work? Why or why not”  Or, "I’m interested in working outdoors using my math and science skills.  Do you have any suggestions?”

Considering college but not sure:  Ask, “Did you go straight to university, work or something else?  How did that help you, or not, developing your career?”

As you can see, the questions are endless, limited only by your curiosity. Make a list of questions ahead of time.  That way, if your mind goes blank when Great Aunt Gerta wraps you in a most uncomfortable bear hug, you’ve got notes in your pocket.

Instead of rolling your eyes when Gram or Uncle George drone on about the world going down the tubes or what's wrong with kids today, take control.  Get information and answers to career questions.  You may learn about new fields or job types that are news to you. 

Even more important to your future career can be learning your family’s attitude about work.  If it doesn’t match yours or isn’t terribly positive, now you know of a lurking negative attitude that could effect your own.  You may also have stumbled across the reason why no one is being terribly supportive when you declare you want to find challenging work that fits you well.

On the plus side, your relatives or extended family may have some great ideas for jobs to research or people with whom you can job shadow.  Adults are usually fascinated by youth who have the moxie to start career planning in high school or before college graduation. This gives you “Wow!” power.  Adults often want to help young people avoid the wandering in the career wilderness that they did.  Take advantage of this willingness to help.

In addition to learning a whole lot, you may also find one or two people with whom you want to be your career mentor/s.  That’s worth even more than Grandpa’s $50.00 check.

Be the first to post your holiday strategy or how you used the holidays to get career information and win a copy of What Color Is Your Parachute for Teens.  Must be under 24 years of age to win.