Middle school career exploration
Career Exploration for Middle School Students
In grades 6 to 8 the aim is to widen what students can see and give them words for what they like. It is not to choose a career. This page is for teachers and counselors who want to start that way.
Why explore before planning
A career plan needs careers to choose from. In grades 6 to 8 the first job is to give students a wider view of the work that exists and the words to talk about it.
That is why the JobCannon grade 6 lesson plans start with vocabulary. Students sort real work situations into job, occupation, career and career pathway. Then each student takes one national career cluster and finds real occupations inside it. The plan says the vocabulary is the whole point: the rest of the year's work is unreadable without it.
Interests also change. The model behind RIASEC expects a person's interests to stay fairly steady but to shift with education, job experience or major life events. A result in grade 7 is a snapshot to talk about, not a forecast. Exploring works better as something a student repeats in grades 6, 7 and 8 than as one test.
Your state may also ask for a student career or education plan. The career and education plan mandate directory lists the ones we have verified, with sources.
Explore interests, not job titles
Ask what a student likes to do, not what they want to be. “I like fixing things and being outside” leads to many kinds of work. “I want to be a vet” is one job, and it tells you less.
RIASEC sorts interests into six areas: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising and Conventional. It asks what a student would like to do, not how well they score. The result is the areas a student leans towards, not a job title. The RIASEC types guide describes each area.
Four things to avoid:
- Treating a result as a verdict. It describes interests today. The grade 7 lesson plans teach students to read a result about themselves without either dismissing it or obeying it.
- Starting with pay. A RIASEC result says which work fits a student's interests. It is a weak guide to pay and is not meant for forecasting income. Pay has its place in grade 8, when students guess salaries, check them against the federal figure and read which occupation that figure is about.
- Personality labels too early. Most JobCannon tests are calibrated for ages 14 and up. For grades 6 to 8 the recommended sequence starts with strengths and interests, and leaves the Big Five personality test until grade 9.
- Treating the top career as the answer. A result lists several careers for a reason. Ask which of them the student is curious about and which they would cross off. Both answers tell you something.
What results look like for younger students
After the RIASEC test a student sees six scores, one for each interest area, and a three-letter code. The top three careers show on the same screen, best fit first. Each career shows a fit score as a percentage, with a fit label beside it: Strong fit, Good fit, Possible fit or Stretch fit. The label comes from the score, not from the career's place in the list, so two careers can carry the same label.
The score compares the student's interest profile with the interest profile O*NET, the US Department of Labor's occupation database, holds for that career. It says the work matches the student's interests. It does not say the student will be good at the job.
The result shows the top three careers. A longer ranked list is part of Premium for individual accounts. Skills and courses are not on the result screen. They are in the Career Guide, which needs an account, so a student on a class code does not see them through the class link.
In the grade 7 lesson plan, students take an interest inventory and then spend most of the period reading their own result, including the part they disagree with. One of its discussion questions is: “Your result names interests, not abilities. Where would you see the difference?”
How a class starts with one link
Ask us for a class link, then share it with the class. A class code works the same way. Students open the link or enter the code, pick a username and start. There are no student accounts, no email addresses and no roster import.
Which test comes first depends on the grade. For grade 6 the recommended tests are Multiple Intelligences and Temperament, which start from strengths. In grade 7 the lesson plan uses Career Match as its interest inventory: 12 questions, about 3 minutes. It lists RIASEC, 60 questions and about 4 minutes, as the longer alternative.
The teacher gets a class report: every student who took the test through the link, with each one's main result, on one page. On tests scored on several scales, the page also shows the class average for each scale once at least five students have finished, so no single student can be picked out. Students who use the public link instead are the only ones who see their own result.
JobCannon also has six 45-minute lesson plans, two each for grades 6, 7 and 8. They sit in the coordinator resources area, and each one lists what JobCannon provides and what the classroom provides. There is no implementation service and no playbook beyond the plans.
Want a class link for your middle school?
Tell us your school and how many students. We reply by email to set up your class link.
Student data under 13 (COPPA)
For under-13s our posture is data minimisation, not parental consent: on a class code a student enters the code and picks a username, and we collect no email address and no demographics. We do not have a verifiable-parental-consent workflow; if your school or district requires one, that requirement is unmet today.
A Data Processing Agreement is drafted against our actual infrastructure. It is not signable yet; email support and we will tell you where it stands against your procurement timeline.
The COPPA guide sets out the rules for under-13 use, and the FERPA guide covers student records. Read both before a class link goes out.