Customer Interviews No. 3

1) I’m going to ask 5 U.S students what they think about my idea. I’ve decided that I'm going to trim down my questions to three and have them be really open questions. When I had too many questions a lot of them were being answered in their responses anyway so I think it’s better to have fewer questions where they can elaborate.

2) Since I’m studying abroad in Madrid for my first interviews I interviewed U.S students in Madrid that attended the same university but that I did not know. However I could not find any other english speakers that could give relevant insight so for this round of interviews I conducted phone interviews with students in the U.S that I did not personally know. I sent them my paragraph and asked for their reaction. Here is the paragraph and their responses:
“I believe that there is a major flaw with our education system because there is very little if any career guidance for students throughout their years in elementary, middle and high school. My organization would help guide them to the career that is right for them by exposing them to different career paths through a shadowing program. The organization would work along with their education institution to come up with possible careers that would be right for the student according to their academic strengths, their preferences and their interests. The program would allow the kids enrolled to shadow professionals every couple years as their preferences, interests, and academic strengths change. My organization would try to eliminate or reduce the amount of high school graduates that start college without an idea of what they want to major in.”
1. What is your reaction?
-(Jake): I think that a program like that would be great but I’m not sure if that’s possible because kids have to be in school for a certain amount of time each year. So I’m not sure if they would let you take some kids out of school. There also might be an issue with the safety of the children because parents are always very cautious of having their kids go out of school on field trips to different places.”
-(Marie): “I would have loved to be in a program like that because I came into college not knowing what I wanted to do so I wanted a lot of time and money taking classes for different majors.”
-(Itzel): “I think kids would really love that a program like that. Especially the older kids that are starting to think about what they want to do. The small kids might get bored if they shadow someone boring so maybe they should shadow more exciting jobs.”
-(Harry): “It sounds like a cool program. I’m sure a lot of kids would really benefit from that.”
-(Anne): “ Yeah, I love that idea! I think it would help plenty of kids find their careers or at least give them a better idea of what they want to do. I would have definitely signed up for something like that. Especially during high school when I was deciding what school to go to.”
2. What would you change about the program?
-(Jake): “I would make it an after school program that parents can sign their kids up for. That way the kids won’t miss any school and there are no time constraints.”
-(Marie): “ I would let the parents have a say in what jobs the kids shadow. I think parents would have a good idea of what kind of job is good for their child. And that way the kid doesn’t go shadow a job that will never be good for them.”
-(Itzel): “I think the program should only be for high school kids. Or maybe for middle school and high school because little kids might get bored and misbehave. I think middle school and high school students will be able to appreciate it more.”
-(Harry): “I think that it would be cool if they got to shadow jobs in completely different fields, including some that maybe aren’t the most lucrative or sought after jobs. Because everyone can’t be a lawyer or doctor and those jobs aren’t for everyone. So it would be nice for the kids to see a broad range of jobs that all sorts of people do.”
-(Anne): “No, that program sounds pretty cool. I can’t believe that someone hasn’t thought about something like that before”
3. What do you think would be the biggest hurdles in implementing a program like this?
-(Jake): “I think the schools and parents would probably not allow kids to leave school for a whole day to shadow someone. So you would have to somehow convince them or change the program somehow.”
-(Marie): “The biggest hurdle would probably be the parents allowing their children to go shadow some stranger. I think a lot of parents are over protective, especially with really young kids.”
-(Itzel): “I think it would be hard to get small kids interested in shadowing and watching someone for a whole day. I feel like their attention span is probably too small to do something like that.”
-(Harry): “I think it might be hard to find people that would let a bunch of kids walk around their office all day because they might get annoyed or they might think the small kids will break something.”
-(Anne): “Maybe it will be hard to find the people to financially back the idea at first because I think that’s probably the hardest part of starting any organization.”
3) These interviews definitely gave me some new insight and ideas. I think it might be a good idea to have the program be only for kids in middle school and high school. I think kids that are any younger might not be so interested in shadowing and maybe they will be more likely to misbehave. I’m surprised that so many people considered the parents as a key part of the organization or as the biggest hurdle for it. I always thought that as long as I receive support from the school I would be fine. But now I definitely have to consider the parents as a bigger factor.