Career Tree®
Inspire and empower students to complete their course of study—and thrive in their education and career journey.
Why It Works
Generation Z is now the first generation in history that demands personal purpose and relevance for everything they do. These non-negotiables must be fulfilled before they will move forward in their education and career journey.
To harness this unique generational dynamic, we’ve created a groundbreaking approach to enrolling, engaging, and completing students: the Career Tree.
Born of years of experience and research, the Career Tree is the first generationally focused solution to address these challenges for young people everywhere. Whether you’re an educator, employer, or community leader, the Career Tree delivers a fresh vision for purpose-driven education and passion-driven employment.
To change the game, we must tell a powerful story to students, parents, employers, and communities. The story must highlight the big-picture outcome: the fully developed pipelines between education with purpose that lead to employment with passion.
This clear path from learning to employment can be incredibly motivating to young people, and this is the story your custom Career Trees will tell. Discover how this classroom strategy brings your existing career development tools to life in a whole new way—so that real action is the next step.
PROFESSIONAL CAREERS
TECHNICAL CAREERS
ENTRY-LEVEL CAREERS
Calcasieu Parish School Board
Current Executive Director at Arizona ACTE
Northeast Career and Technical Academy
Calcasieu Parish School Board
Current Executive Director at Arizona ACTE
Northeast Career & Technical Academy
Watch how the Career Tree empowered these students with clarity and motivation!
How It Works
Through years of advising top-level education and business clients, we uncovered a simple truth: ongoing dialogue is the secret to meaningful career exploration for this generation.
The Career Tree is a conversation-driven strategy that motivates young people to think about the lifestyle they want to live—and the career that would make it possible. Dialogue, research, and self-discovery help move them forward so they can keep taking steps toward a bright future.
Every Career Tree is custom-designed for your unique pathways and features a selection of viable, living-wage careers at all levels of education and experience in that field. Through engaging exercises, personal study, and meaningful reflection, learners are encouraged to choose a potential career to affix as a leaf to the interactive Career Tree graphic in your learning space.
Their career and lifestyle aspiration then becomes the touchpoint for all their future achievements—inspiring them to perform at a higher level, think about their goals, and build a personal competitive advantage—because they want to.
In the classroom,
the Career Tree:
In the community,
the Career Tree:
- Sparks students’ internal motivation with the Light at the End of the Tunnel strategy
- Shifts students from a class-taking mentality to a program completion mentality
- Shows students the relevance of their education to the life they want to live upon completion
- Helps students overcome decision paralysis by choosing a relevant “for-now” career direction
- Empowers students to complete their pathway with a personal competitive advantage
- Works seamlessly with your existing career development tools to create an ongoing culture of dialogue and growth
In the community,
the Career Tree:
- Delivers a compelling narrative to shift people’s thinking about education and careers
- Connects the dots and builds pipelines between education and employment
- Gets more of the right students, in the right programs and pathways, for the right reasons
- Partners with industry to align instruction with real-world careers
- Showcases the dynamic competitive advantage your organization delivers
- Creates a common framework to bolster local economic growth and shrink the skills gap
The Story It Tells
Many people simply don’t know about the myriad of different ways to get the skills and training for the real world of work. The Career Tree allows you to tell a fresh story to parents, employers, community leaders, and other stakeholders about how your organization prepares young people to make the most of their journey.
Who It’s For
Because it’s customized to each organization and pathway, the Career Tree is used in a wide range of learning environments:
- High schools
- Middle schools
- K–12 districts
- Special needs classrooms
- Technical and community colleges
- Universities
- Workforce development settings
- Employment settings
- Adult education centers
- And many others across North America
For the learner, the outcome becomes clear, personal, and relevant to the effort needed to achieve it. This creates and delivers education with purpose, driving significantly more students to completion at all levels of education and experience.
Whether they’re headed to college, specialized postsecondary training, the military, or directly into the workforce, the Career Tree equips young people to go with purpose, build a powerful competitive advantage—and thrive in a fast-changing world. And it’s easy to implement.
Every day, teachers and trainers are using the Career Tree to foster student success and completion based on each student’s own unique interests, talents, and abilities. This ongoing dialogue, flowing through the conduit of a teacher/student human connection, allows students to continually calibrate their goals without losing motivation or progress.
And with its seamless integration into your existing lesson plans and career development tools, the Career Tree doesn’t create another thing for teachers to do. Instead, it supersizes everything you’re already doing—and ties it all together.
Available Resources
WALL GRAPHICS
Customized Interactive Wall Graphics and/or Banners for every classroom, branded in your logo and colors.
CLASSROOM MATERIALS
A comprehensive Curriculum Guide and robust classroom worksheets and materials.
ONLINE PORTAL FOR STAFF
Exclusive Online Portal to build your Trees, with 24/7 access to all the best practices and tools to use your Career Trees to the fullest. Log In here
COACHING & PRIORITY SCHEDULING
Continued coaching, product support, and priority PD scheduling available with Career Tree creator Mark C. Perna and the TFS Results team.
NEW! COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE TRACK
Let Career Tree creator Mark C. Perna help coach your
students on the importance of crafting a personal
competitive advantage—and the vital professional
skills to thrive!
More than ever, young people need to develop life
and career skills like:
• Problem-solving
• Human connection
• Stress management
• Learning from failure
• And many more
Our Competitive Advantage Track (included with your Career Tree license) lays out these game-changing abilities in a highly customizable, plug-and-play format. Each module (or “Slice”) includes a short, heartfelt talk by Mark about a particular skill and why it matters. With discussion starters, group and individual activities, worksheets, games, assignments, and reflective journaling to deepen the learning experience, all you have to do is add students.
The Competitive Advantage Track delivers an easy, engaging way for young people to start their journey toward the personal competitive advantage they need—one skill at a time.
Access to the Competitive Advantage Track is included with your Career Tree license.
Classroom Resource Packets Available Exclusively in the Portal to Our Career Tree Community
STAFF VIDEO TRAINING
Engaging, video-based training series delivered by Career Tree creator Mark C. Perna.
Get a sneak peek at the first two videos in our robust training series! With a fresh generational perspective and practical examples, Mark ensures that every educator can effectively leverage the Career Tree in their learning environment. Watch now for why and how the Career Tree is shifting the education paradigm.
Staff Training: Sneak Peek
Success Stories
Thousands of students and trainees across North America are using the Career Tree to expand their options and opportunities. Here are a few real-world results our clients are experiencing.
The Career Tree Professional Skills Score creates value not just…
by Mark C. Perna
by Mark C. Perna
The Career Tree shows prospective students and parents the real-life,…
by Mark C. Perna
Discover the Career Tree Today
Schedule a demo to find out how the Career Tree can empower your students with a personal competitive advantage. We look forward to connecting with you!