Some European countries require early career decisions from their young people. In countries with a dual education system (e.g., Germany, Austria, Switzerland) adolescents as young as 14 or 15 have to come up with career decisions and to apply for an apprenticeship (combining training at the workplace with part-time education in a vocational school). Theories on career orientation would regard this age as very early for solid decisions which take personal interests and abilities into consideration rather than social expectations or stereotypes. Even though these young adolescents need support, career counselling and support measures offered by schools and other institutions leave a lot to be desired. Consequently, the problems are manifold: insecurities in career decisions, gender-stereotyped decisions, or dropouts. Many of these problems concern occupations in STEM branches. The present perspective paper pursues the following aims: • to highlight the specific difficulties of young adolescents facing such early decisions, • to investigate reasons why few girls consider an apprenticeship in STEM branches, • to discuss perspectives on how to support these adolescents for well-grounded career decisions based on Gottfredson's Theory of Circumscription and Compromise that are not influenced by gender stereotypes or by biased advice of parents, teachers, peers, and others. © 2021 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
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