So, it was with some trepidation that we hosted a poll on printweek.com asking readers if they would encourage a family member to enter the print industry.

I’m not going to lie, the results were a little depressing: more than two-thirds of the people that voted answered no.

Which begs the question, how can we convince more young people to join the industry if we wouldn’t even recommend it to members of our own family?

To be fair to the 221 that voted in the poll, it was a tad binary and perhaps they were having a bad day and looked at the question through the optics of their own job and how they felt about it in that moment, rather than considering the myriad roles and careers that exist in print today.

After all, if I was asked right now, when we’re on press, it’s a short week (Easter) and missed deadlines are flying past at rate of knots, then I probably wouldn’t suggest my kids consider following my career path either.

But still, both have come to Printweek Towers for their Year 10 work placements in recent years – although I had the good sense to place them under the wing of people far more patient and interesting than me.

One loved it, one not so much – but I’ll take that. What was great for me was two-fold: firstly, and selfishly, they now know what I do for a living and secondly, and most importantly, they learned about the career opportunities in publishing and then talked about them with peers back at school.

The point is, I didn’t have to recommend my career to them, I just exposed them to it and let them make up their own minds. And who knows, perhaps one of them or their schoolmates will end up being my boss one day, which now I think about it, is almost as scary as an actual ticking time-bomb!