The short of it is we believe, for not only the wide-ranging benefits to individuals but the compounding effect they’d have across society as a whole, that everyone should be in a career they love. But as you’ll see in the section below, the numbers reveal almost entirely the opposite.

Examining the graph below, the Gallup poll shows just about one-third of people engaged at work. In another survey, Deloitte's Shift Index found only 13% of the U.S. workforce is passionate about their jobs. And after almost a decade of research, the "purpose" firm Ignite reported that more than 95% of workers are in the wrong roles.

Think for a moment about all the productivity, creativity, and personal fulfillment we’re leaving on the table with those numbers.

This data hits every demographic too, even the ones you might not think. CEO of Entertainment Media Partners Adam Leipzig concluded after his 25-year reunion with Yale University classmates that 80% of them were unhappy in their lives as a result of being unfulfilled in their work.

It all begs the question – how can we be doing such a bad job of setting people up to find meaningful work?

If the overwhelming majority is experiencing this, then it’s clear the system isn’t meeting the needs of the individual. Let’s take a closer look at these two entities at work.

As far as how the system operates, at the outset, generally speaking, youth, without any real work experience, make long-term commitments to a particular field. That sentence, in and of itself, throws up glaring red flags for us as students of education-to-work research. If “experience is the best teacher,” why aren’t we allowing our youth more of it before making a long-term commitment? Do we somehow expect young people to get it right their first time?

But now advancing further along in it, individuals achieve their credential and by the time they’ve worked for long enough in their field to get a sense of their fit for it and know they want a change (and again, by the data, we know they do), any number of barriers may stand in their way to a career transition, the predominant one being financial – either the student debt they’re saddled with, additional financial burdens encountered through starting a family, homeownership, etc, or simply the unwillingness to make another significant time-and-money investment to go in another uncertain direction where they may find themselves in exactly the same position. According to a Harris poll, indeed 57% indicated a lack of financial security as a significant barrier. The other two highest-ranking barriers were not knowing what career they’d like to change to (40%), and insufficient qualifications to change (37%).

The last factor we must mention is from the individual’s standpoint; the data also suggest the complexity of our occupational identities. Research is only beginning to understand this area but given the complexity, why aren’t we providing our youth more opportunity to explore theirs?

Frontload work experience that's flexible to the needs of the individual.

If you start getting experience in real work settings at the secondary level, you'd have a significant amount of time (or certainly at least a lot more than you do at the moment) to maneuver and find the right footing for you in the world of work before more of life starts bearing down.

Examining the issue comprehensively, the research also bares out the value in this strategy not only from the individual’s perspective but the employer’s as well.

Consequently, our...

To provide and guide authentic student work experiences across all industries and professions, focusing primarily on the academic, professional, and autonomous development of the individual, thereby enabling participants with the skills and experience to not only home in on their best-fit career path but also successfully guide it themselves thereafter in ultimately reaching their full potential