1. Career Day – Making It Manageable and Meaningful
Carrie Jackson and Tiffany Ward
Swansboro Middle School

2. Why do a Career Day? Students begin exploration of career options
Community involvement
Staff connections/involvement
High school course planning
ASCA/NC Essential Standards covered

3. Different Forms of Career Day
Career Fair
Students rotate around booths
Interest-driven
Career Day Speakers
Assembly with guest speakers
Fewer career options
Career Showcase/Expo
Students participate in activities
Heavy focus on trades
Career Day “Conference”
Multiple presenters/multiple “sessions”
Students choose sessions
Random sessions are assigned to fill spaces

4. “Conference” style career day
Held on Early Release Day
Only career activities are done on this day
Students attend three career day sessions
Send out a schedule of the day
Contact your cafeteria/office staff/other essential personnel – whole school participation!!
Students are integrated (no division between 6th, 7th, and 8th grade)
Teachers allowed to rotate among sessions, as long as a staff member is in a room with students and a presenter

5. Presenter information
Letters mailed and hand delivered *
Forms sent home with every student *
Staff members who had previous careers invited to present
Get one (or more if interest is there) of your teachers to present on teaching
Staff members will be asked for the Career Day to provide us with one contact – WE will make the contact, we just need names! 
Presenters RSVP on a GoogleDoc
GoogleDoc used to keep track of presenter data

6. Presenter information, cont.
Presenters committed are contacted week prior to event
Nametags created
Student tour guides are available morning of
Presenters stay in same room – students rotate to them
Hand-written thank you cards mailed to presenters

7. Students Choose Sessions
Once presenters are secured, students take a Career Day Survey
For our Career Day, students picked three sessions
Sessions that weren’t full were then filled so that session numbers were balanced
Took a LONG time – we learned from our mistake!
For our Career Day, students picked their top choice and one alternate
We hand scheduled all 820 students
Instead of having to shift and move students, students were placed by first choice and then assigned two random sessions – MUCH easier
Only took two hours

8. Students choose sessions, cont.
Nametags were created for every student through a mail merge
Nametags given to Advisory teachers the day before Career Day
Students checked their nametags for duplicate sessions and hand-wrote room numbers
Students hand-wrote versus being printed so conversation took place about where rooms were located on our campus
Morning of, students received their nametags and wore them
Staff could view nametags to help students navigate and ensure they were in the correct session(s) and not with their friends! 

9. Career day activities We are a 1:1 campus except for 6th grade
Activities were created with this in mind
6th Grade completed worksheets
Career Day word search created on puzzlemaker.com
RIASEC worksheet created by counselors
7th Grade created CFNC accounts and took the Career Key
Completed on their individual computers
If they finished early, they explored careers listed under their Holland code
8th Grade explored chosen career
Used OOH and CFNC to research a career they were interested in
Worksheet was completed on Edmodo

10. Pre/post surveys
For the Career Day we conducted a pre-survey to determine careers of interest
Students were disappointed when careers they chose were not present at Career Day
Students and staff provided feedback on a post-survey after Career Day
Used data from the post-survey in school year to make adjustments to Career Day
Post-survey used again for Career Day
Staff members also completed a post-survey
Results will be used for next year’s Career Day
Ideas we are taking from it
Labeled hallways
Worksheets completed DURING sessions
Sessions on college information

11. Timeline One to two months before: One week before: Week of:
Invite presenters, make deadline a month before Career Day date
Send home Career Day letter with students
One week before:
Contact presenters again
Student news promotes Career Day
Send out schedule to all staff members for Career Day (time blocks, lunch schedule, advisory, etc.)
Week of:
Make student schedules
Make student nametags
Make presenter nametags
Give staff a layout of who is presenting where (room #s)
Day before:
Order refreshments
Students review nametags and room numbers
Tour Guides selected

12. Timeline, cont. Day of: Day after: Set up refreshment area
Students receive nametags
Welcome guest speakers
Guest speaker photo
Student news interviews (with selected presenters)
Students complete Career Day activities
Students complete post-survey
School staff complete post-survey
Day after:
Write and mail thank you letters
Analyze survey data

13. implications of career day – what now?
Field trip
Planned for local community college for those students who selected a career requiring a two-year degree
CFNC will be invited back to continue creating a college-going school environment
EXPLORE results will be linked to careers chosen by eighth graders
Data on students’ outlook on Career Day
Those who rated 1 or 2 were spoken to individually to see what concerns there were
Overall, on a scale from 1-5, students ranked Career Day being meaningful at a 3.8

14. Career day suggestions from the audience
Invite the college school liaison and this session is mandatory for the 8th graders
Do Career Day on Tuesday of Thanksgiving week with 40 minute sessions
Invite the Superintendent
Invite the mobile veterinarian or a vet tech
Invite a Judge or Department of Corrections
Students get a choice of 5 and give them 3 of their choices
Give the presenters a talking point sheet to help them fill the 40 minutes
If doing it all day have Career Day in the morning and then have a presentation in the afternoon as a whole school