Can you prototype your career aspirations?
A prototype can be defined as an early sample or model of a product built to test a concept or process. It is commonly used for design, electronics and software programming. Prototyping helps evaluate, test a design, and gather feedback before actually doing it.
Prototyping a physical product, user interface, etc. is totally doable. But can we prototype our careers?
Youth who participated in the 3-part Creative Prototyping workshop organized by *SCAPE and My Working Title have learned they can. Whether it be to prototype career paths, ideas or projects you can actually ‘prototype’ your career!! For some this may mean testing out their aspirations or just dreaming up ideas that might be turned into side hustles!
Many of the participants were trying to figure out what they wanted to do or what they wanted to explore. In the workshops, they got hands-on experience prototyping their career aspirations. And by the end of the session, many of them gained clarity on what actions they can take further to test further.
(Source: MatcHub)
Why attend workshops to prototype career aspirations?
Here are some reasons from the participants:
- Help you figure out where you’re going.
- Gain the confidence to try something new.
- Have a testing ground for exploring and exchanging ideas.
Part 1: Finding their passion
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Participants like John*, who’s not sure what career path to pursue, got the chance to explore their interests and figure out what’s something they want to prototype to see its feasibility and decide if this is something they want to pursue. They had a chance to pause and reflect on their answers to these questions:
- “Who do you want to impact?”
- “Who can help you?”
- “What resources do you need?”
- “Do you want this bad enough?”
With that, they can decide on their first draft of how they can test out their ideas.
*fictitious name, in respect of PDPA
Part 2: Hands-on
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The second part of Creative Prototyping brought all the participants ideas and big dreams into actionable steps. Be it starting a podcast, YouTube channel or being a marketer. This is where participants have to be clear on how or where to start their prototype with actions they can complete within a 30 days time frame.
Progress rather than perfection is what’s important at this stage and getting to test out a prototype and gain new insights in the process.
Part 3: Getting support
(Source: MatcHub)
Lastly, it is time to pitch their career prototype. Share it out more, and we’re less likely to give up. Using the A-I-D-A framework (Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action), participants worked on their pitch and shared it, and exchanged feedback to help each other improve!
These workshops show us the possibilities of prototyping our careers paths, ideas or projects. Together with other career seekers/prototypers, it is a safe space for youth to articulate our questions, doubts, perspectives without judgment. It can be a conversation with someone to explore your interest, to test your assumptions. It can help further reflection and encouragement to take the step out or step back. Getting feedback from a community instead of living in your head is a step forward.
*SCAPE Career Studio is here to support youth as you ideate and test out your career aspirations. They’ve just awarded S$1,000 each to 3 youths who would be prototyping their career interest projects. Stay tuned for more!
This 3-part Creative Prototyping Workshop was part of the *SCAPE Career Studio programme to support youth to discover and explore their career aspirations.
Find out more about *SCAPE Career Studio and its upcoming events at https://www.scape.sg/ec/scapecareerstudio/
