For ākonga/students who are not wanting to enter tertiary study when they leave high school, there are many other exciting options available:

Here are some ideas to get you started:

Employment:

There are a lot of employment opportunities currently in Dunedin and beyond, especially in café/hospitality, trades, aged care.

Ensure you have a great CV that highlights your skills and qualities as well as things like sports, community groups/involvement, clubs, volunteering etc. There are many sites to help you create a great CV such as https://www.careers.govt.nz/job-hunting/cvs-and-cover-letters/

Actively job seek by looking at job search websites, signing up to job alerts (e.g., seek.co.nz), recruitment agencies (e.g., Select, Adecco), and most importantly visiting places you’d love to work and handing in your CV and cover letter (ask to speak to a manager and introduce yourself as well!)

Workforce Central (the new hospital build) are also actively seeking people to start work/training in many areas to assist with the new build. This could be admin, construction, healthcare etc. They are keen to develop young people who have left school to help pathway them into exciting careers. https://www.wfcd.co.nz/seeking-a-career

Connected NZ can help with job seeking and have a local office in Dunedin https://www.connected.govt.nz/your-region/otago/

Need some work experience to get you started or want to help your community whilst gaining experience for you CV? Try volunteering: https://www.volunteeringnz.org.nz/

Want to travel and get work experience working with young people? Camp America is a great adventure: https://campamerica.co.nz/. They are currently recruiting so look into this soon if you’re keen

The ‘GAP’ Year:

Many people decide to take a ‘gap’ year to refocus and decide what they want to do. This is a great idea if you do it well, but it is VERY important to have goals and purpose for this period to retain your motivation and not waste your time. It can also end up costing you money if you don’t have a plan or a job.

Set yourself a few achievable goals and write an action plan of how you will achieve these in your ‘gap’ year. For example:

Goals for my Gap Year

I want to figure out what my next career step will be

Action/How I will achieve it: I will make a plan to talk to people in jobs that I might be interested in and spend 1 hour per week researching careers online

I want to earn some money to pay for future study or travel

Action/How I will achieve it: I will finish my CV this week and start applying for jobs next week.I will put aside 50% of everything I earn into a savings account.

Further training/study:

Just a few ideas…

Beauty Therapy, Hairdressing etc: https://pie.ac.nz/premier-institute-of-education-courses/

Tree House- provide 13-week Work and Income funded training and job search programmes as well as training in café and hospitality unit standards: https://treehouse.org.nz/

Tourism: NZ School of Tourism and Queenstown Resort College

https://www.nzschooloftourism.co.nz/

https://www.qrc.ac.nz/

Skillsec- offering free training in trades, aged care and employment skills: https://skillsec.co.nz/education-courses

NZ Defence Force: https://defencecareers.mil.nz/defence-careers/

Please see Ms Kershaw or Mrs Signal-Cambridge for more information or help with any of these options.