What if schools didn’t just prepare high school students for graduation but for everything that comes after it?
That’s the promise of career-connected learning (CCL).
The decisions students make about college, trade school, or jumping straight into work—plus what skills to build or industries to explore—can shape their lives for decades. Yet many make these choices without enough context or support, missing a true understanding of how education links to opportunity.
CCL fills that gap. Here are eight strategies to help you build a program that opens doors, promotes equity, and empowers every student to find a future that fits.
8 Career-Connected Learning Tips
1. Make your program future-focused and real-world relevant.
Today’s students will enter a workforce shaped by rapid change: automation, AI, climate tech, and entire industries that haven’t been invented yet. A strong CCL program helps them look ahead, think critically, and prepare for a future that’s still unfolding.
That starts with the right mindset. Help students develop one by exploring how work has changed over the last hundred years, and then challenge them to imagine how it might evolve in the next ten. What jobs are emerging? What skills are likely to matter most? Which careers might fade away?
Alongside career exploration, be sure to teach transferable competencies like collaboration, adaptability, digital fluency, and problem-solving. These are the kinds of skills students can carry with them across industries, roles, and career shifts.
It’s also essential to bring relevance into the classroom. That could mean partnering with local employers, hosting guest speakers, or offering hands-on learning experiences like internships and apprenticeships. These connections help students see that what they’re learning today can lead to real opportunity tomorrow.
A CCL program that’s forward-thinking and well-designed will open doors. As researchers Bierly and Smith note, future-focused programs “broaden the pool of people who have access to the good jobs and careers that will be increasingly plentiful in the years ahead.”
2. Use data to guide students forward.
When students choose a college major or career pathway, they’re making a major investment in their future. But too often, they’re doing it without the right data in hand.
Well-designed CCL programs make labor market data part of the learning experience. Help students explore which industries are growing in your region, which jobs are in demand, and which careers align with different education levels—from certificates to four-year degrees.
You can also introduce the concept of return on investment (ROI) in education. For example, how much might a student earn with an associate degree in a high-demand field? What’s the typical debt load for a related bachelor’s program? These are real questions students and families are asking. CCL programs should help them find the answers.
At Pathway2Careers, we recommend using data that’s not only accurate, but also localized and easy to interpret. Teachers and counselors should have access to professional learning that helps them confidently bring this data into the classroom and guide students through it.
Finally, make equity part of the conversation. Looking at state- and region-specific workforce data through a lens of race, gender, and economic opportunity can spark important conversations. It can help students ask deeper questions about access, representation, and fairness in the world of work.
3. Systematically introduce students to a wide range of careers.
Students can’t dream about careers they’ve never heard of. That’s why it’s important to design CCL programs that give all learners, not just those in CTE or Early College pathways, structured exposure to a wide variety of careers.
A great way to start is by using the National Career Clusters Framework®, which organizes the world of work into 14 categories (called Career Clusters), from Health Care & Human Services to Construction and Hospitality, Events, & Tourism. With this structure in place, students can explore a diverse range of careers—some they’ve considered, and others they’ve never imagined.
Help teachers and counselors feel confident using this framework. Provide professional learning, ready-to-use lessons, and guidance on how to integrate career exploration into everyday instruction. Then, work together to develop classroom experiences and activities that spotlight a wide variety of roles and industries, not just the usual suspects.
Introduce long-term strategies for building wealth.
Help students explore investment options and learn how to make informed decisions that will grow their money over time. This component helps learners understand risk and reward, the power of compounding, and the benefits of diversification.
Key concepts:
- Types of investments, including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and ETFs
- Selecting investments that align with one’s risk tolerance, financial goals, and values
- The importance of diversification and compounding returns
- Portfolio building and monitoring
- Staying ahead of inflation
4. Build career awareness and opportunity knowledge.
Beyond helping students choose their ideal job, career-connected learning should help students understand how the world of work works. That’s where two key concepts come in: career awareness and opportunity knowledge.
- Career awareness helps students recognize the full range of careers available, along with the skills, environments, and education levels those jobs involve.
- Opportunity knowledge helps students understand how to access those careers. What are the steps? What kind of training is needed? What credentials will open the right doors?
Research shows that building this kind of knowledge early on can shape students’ life trajectories, especially for those from historically underserved communities. When students understand not just what jobs exist, but how to reach them, they’re better equipped to make informed, empowering choices.
So, how do you build career awareness? One of the most effective ways is through authentic stories. Bring in real voices—with classroom speakers, virtual Q&As, and career interviews. P2C Career Explorer brings all that together in one place, by showcasing hundreds of real-life career journeys that make the world of work feel more relatable, inclusive, and real.
5. Embed career learning into core subjects.
CCL efforts are often limited to Career and Technical Education (CTE) or high-achieving students in honors tracks. That means large groups of students miss out, even though all learners deserve access to career exploration and guidance.
The solution? Integrate CCL into core academics. When teachers in subjects like English, math, history, and science connect their content to real-world careers, it brings learning to life and reaches far more students. For example, a math teacher might use labor market data in a lesson on data analysis, while a history teacher could explore the evolution of jobs across time periods.
This approach isn’t just practical; it’s powerful. As education leader Chaney Loyd puts it, career-connected learning can be “an opportunity multiplier for students.” But that only happens when programs are flexible, accessible, and woven into the full curriculum.
Make sure your teachers understand how CCL works and how it can enhance what they already do. With the right support and resources, career learning can fit naturally into every subject area.
6. Keep learning relevant to today’s (and tomorrow’s) world.
If students don’t see how their learning connects to life after graduation, they’re less likely to stay engaged. That’s why relevance is at the heart of any effective CCL program.
Students should regularly engage with real-world applications of what they’re learning. That could mean using science concepts to solve a local environmental issue, or writing a persuasive letter as part of a civics project related to public policy careers.
Just as important is helping students build transferable skills—sometimes called “employability” or “soft” skills. These include communication, critical thinking, teamwork, adaptability, and financial literacy. They’re not tied to a single career path, but they give students the flexibility to move between roles and industries as the job market evolves.
Prepare students not just for their first job, but for a lifetime of change. As education leader Bill Daggett puts it, schools need to help learners “transition from secondary education and beyond to postsecondary education and into the changing workforce.”
That kind of preparation doesn’t happen by accident. It requires schools to rethink outdated models and build CCL programs that are future-ready, equity-driven, and fully integrated into the student experience.
7. Make learning meaningful, not abstract.
Students are more likely to engage (and excel) when they understand why what they’re learning matters. Career-connected learning can help make academic content feel relevant, practical, and personal.
When you design CCL programs that connect core subjects to real-world applications, abstract concepts become concrete. Fractions become budgeting tools. Essay writing becomes advocacy. Scientific inquiry becomes health care innovation.
Research consistently shows that when students can see how learning applies to their lives and futures, motivation, retention, and academic performance all increase. Even more importantly, students begin to see themselves differently—as capable, curious, and in control of their own learning.
As educator Jeff Zwiers puts it, students grow “when they have the opportunity to use the tools of learning—language, thinking, and more—to do meaningful things.”
8. Lead the way with vision, support, and feedback.
Strong CCL programs are built by committed teams who lead with purpose and plan with care.
Start by forming a CCL leadership team that includes a mix of voices: administrators, teachers, counselors, and even students. This team can research best practices, identify must-have program features, and create a shared action plan for design and rollout.
Next, set your educators up for success. Offer clear messaging about the why behind career-connected learning, and provide professional learning that’s practical, not theoretical. Focus on real strategies educators can use to integrate career exploration into their daily instruction.
Once the program is underway, pilot and adapt. Gather feedback from students and teachers early and often. Then, use what you learn to improve the program, scale it thoughtfully, and recruit more champions.
Career-connected learning is a team effort, and it gets better with each cycle of reflection and growth.
Conclusion: Start now to shape the future.
Career-connected learning has the power to transform how students see school—and themselves. When done well, it brings relevance to core subjects, opens doors to opportunity, and equips students with the skills and confidence they need to thrive in a changing world.
Whether you’re just getting started or refining an existing program, these eight strategies can help you build a CCL experience that’s inclusive, engaging, and future-ready.
It’s not about adding more to your plate. It’s about connecting what you already teach to the world your students are preparing to enter.
Keep the momentum going.
Want a quick-reference version of these 8 strategies? Download our free infographic.
It’s a great resource to:
- Spark team discussions
- Support PD workshops
- Share with colleagues building CCL programs
