Every adult you know has a career story. It might not be a dramatic one, but it’s real, and that makes it useful. Hearing how someone actually got to where they are, including the parts that didn’t go to plan, gives you something really valuable, in a realistic picture of what working life looks like.
The shift worth making is learning to see the people around you as more than just the roles they play in your life. A parent is also someone who has navigated job applications, workplace challenges, and career decisions. A teacher has made choices about study, training, and what they wanted to do with their life. Your manager at work has a history that led them to the position they’re in now.
Parents and family members
Your parents or family members are often the easiest place to start, simply because you already have regular access to them and a level of comfort in conversation.
What makes them useful isn’t that they’re experts in your specific area of interest. It’s that they’ve been through the process of figuring out what to do, whether or not it worked out, and what they’d do differently. That kind of honest reflection is hard to find anywhere else.
Some questions worth asking:
- How did you end up in your current job or career?
- Was it what you expected when you started out?
- What did you wish you’d known when you were my age?
- Is there anything you’d do differently if you were starting over?
- What’s the most useful thing you’ve learned from working?
You might be surprised how much they’re willing to share once they realise you’re genuinely curious. These conversations tend to open up naturally once you ask the first question.
Teachers
It’s easy to think of teachers purely in terms of what they teach, but that sells them short as a resource. Every teacher made a deliberate choice to be in that room, and most of them took a path to get there that’s worth knowing about.
Some came straight through into education. Others spent years working in other industries before moving into teaching. A graphic designer who became an art teacher, an engineer who moved into maths education, a journalist who now teaches English, each of them carries a career story that goes well beyond the classroom. That story is accessible to you in a way that most people’s aren’t, simply because you see them regularly.
Some questions worth asking:
- Why did you end up becoming a teacher?
- Did you always know this was what you wanted to do?
- What did you study, and did it lead you directly here?
- Have you worked in other roles outside of teaching?
- What do you know now that you wish you’d understood earlier in your career?
Most teachers are happy to talk about their own path when a student shows genuine interest. The classroom dynamic can make it feel like that kind of conversation is off-limits, but it rarely is.
Family friends and relatives in fields you’re curious about
If someone in your extended circle works in an area you’re drawn to, that connection is worth more than it might seem. Not because they can get you a job or tell you exactly what to do, but because they can tell you what it’s actually like from the inside.
Reading about a career online gives you a general description. Talking to someone who does it every day gives you something different: what they genuinely enjoy, what wears them down, how they got started, and what they’d tell someone younger who was considering the same path. That kind of detail doesn’t make it into job descriptions.
Some questions worth asking:
- How did you get into this field?
- What does a typical week look like for you?
- What’s something people outside your industry usually get wrong about it?
- What qualifications or experience helped you the most?
- If someone my age was interested in this area, where would you suggest they start?
Even one conversation with the right person could shift how you see a career you’ve been considering, in either direction.
Your boss at work
If you have a part-time job, your manager is probably someone you interact with regularly but rarely think about as a career resource. The working relationship has a clear structure, and it can feel like that’s where it begins and ends.
But consider where they actually are. They’ve moved through entry-level work, taken on more responsibility, and built the skills to manage a team. At some point they were in a position not entirely unlike yours, figuring out where they were headed. How they got from there to here is a story most employees never think to ask about.
Some questions worth asking:
- How did you end up in this role?
- Did you always work in this industry, or did you come from somewhere else?
- What’s helped you the most in getting to where you are?
- What do you look for when you’re thinking about developing someone in a team?
- Is there anything you’d recommend for someone starting out in their career?
There’s a practical benefit here too. Showing this kind of curiosity at work signals that you’re thinking beyond just turning up and doing your shifts, which is something most managers notice and remember.
What to do with what you hear
Talking to people is only useful if you actually pay attention to what comes back. Some of what you hear might confirm something you already suspected. Some of it might challenge assumptions you didn’t know you had. Occasionally, something someone says will genuinely shift how you see your options.
It helps to approach these conversations without a fixed outcome in mind. You’re not looking for someone to tell you what to do. You’re gathering perspectives, noticing patterns, and building a more complete picture of what working life actually looks like across different fields and paths.
Over time, those conversations add up to something a career quiz never quite manages: a real sense of what’s out there and how people actually get there.
If you want to explore more about navigating your career options, we have plenty of other blogs and resources for you to check out.
