Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar’s career advice for school leavers

Atlassian co-founder and billionaire Scott Farquhar is offering some helpful career tips to young people, urging them not to worry too much about HSC scores.

Nobody cares about your HSC score, the best education you can get is on YouTube but wearing tracksuit pants in public is not a good idea.

That’s the advice from billionaire Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar and it comes amid spiralling levels of student uncertainty about their careers, leading to anxiety and depression.

The billionaire has also urged young people to throw themselves into work experience, undergo psychometric testing to understand how they learn best and not accept a job just because it pays slightly better than something you are passionate about.

Mr Farquhar said young people need to find a balance between the things they’re passionate about, things they’re great at “and things the world cares about and wants to pay for”.

“Where those three things come together is your career,” the 41-year-old said during an interview with careers advisory Year13.

“You can be stuck in a career doing that for 20 years and getting paid well but you’re really not living your true life.”

Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar gives advice to school leavers. Picture: Justin Lloyd

Mr Farquhar is one of a number of industry experts who will be providing career tips at the Year13 Expo as a part of National Careers Week starting May 17.

NCW is an initiative run by The Careers Industry Council of Australia and supported by the federal Government’s National Careers Institute.

“The best education you can get in the world is on YouTube today — it’s not at university,” he said.

“Then you just got to work out how do you get certified that you’ve done that (education)?”

Asked what advice he would give to his young self, Mr Farquhar said he would have ditched the ponytail and tracksuit pants and not fretted about his ATAR — university entrance score — so much.

New figures from Year13 have found the pandemic and technological upheaval in the workforce has led to increasing uncertainty in young people.

Half of senior school students do not know what they want to study after they leave school, up from 43 per cent in 2018.

Uncertainty about their future career has meant 66 per cent of young people have suffered anxiety, 61 per cent sleep disturbances, 61 per cent feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, 45 per cent social isolation and 42 per cent depression.

Year13 founder Saxon Phipps said they were “preparing the future generations of young Australians for industries which we’re pretty sure won’t be around in the next 5-10 years”.

“Right now Australia has some of the biggest and best success stories of start-ups turned billion-dollar enterprises with the likes of Atlassian, Canva and Afterpay,” he said.

“Now more than ever we need to be learning from these leaders to help inspire the next generation as they grasp this new era of work.”

Originally published as Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar’s career advice for school leavers