How much do parents know about post-school options?
- Understanding the Target Market
- Last updated 10 Jan 2020
Even though parents are the greatest influence on students’ career decisions, they are fairly uninformed about post-school options.
AllAboutSchoolLeaver research shows that 11% of parents believe that their children are “too clever for an apprenticeship or school leaver programme”.
Without knowing much about university alternatives – for example, less than half of parents could identify a Higher Apprenticeship – 17.8% of parents said they don’t want their children to do school leaver programmes, and 7.8% said they don’t want their children to do apprenticeships.
However this is only because parents want the best for their children: if employers can demonstrate the value of alternatives to university, there is great scope for winning parents’ approval
The best way employers can do this is through schools (read about how to work with schools for tips) and improving their online profile, making it clear why programmes are a great option for school leavers: 49.5% use Google and 39% use career advice/job websites to access careers information.
A respectable 22% of parents use newspapers to access careers information too, so this is an option worth considering.
