Career Speakers
Career Speakers are career awareness activities that provide opportunities for students to learn about the skills required in various industries or career fields; the career paths taken by those in the field; the tools, materials and equipment used; and the work environment and expectations for performance in various industries.
Benefits
- Provide an opportunity for a classroom or group of students to hear directly from a business person or career professional.
- Allows students to gain realistic perspectives on expectations in a job and/or career field and the workplace requirements.
- Supplements information that can be obtained through other work awareness strategies.
Students explore a career field or pathway in which they have an interest. - Enable a large number of students to explore a variety of career opportunities efficiently.
- Provide the opportunity to gain an understanding of all aspects of an industry.
Success Factors
- Reach out to diverse local employers and professionals that align to student interests.
- Consider a panel of 2-3 guest speakers rather than a single presenter to offer more depth and breadth of information and alleviate some of the pressure on a single presenter to fill a specified period of time.
- Request that the speaker:
- Describe a typical work day.
- Describe their occupation, educational requirements and specialized training required.
- Discuss the aspect of their jobs they like best/least.
- Discuss future employment outlook and projections for their career area.
- Share the general wage and salary information.
- Discuss benefits provided by the company/organization in which they are employed.
- Suggest that the guest speaker include hands-on activities for the students.
- Obtain a brief bio of the guest speaker in advance of the presentation to share with the class.
- Clearly communicate the objectives of having the guest speaker present to the class.
- Guide students to think about the importance of the particular career or job by posing an anticipatory set of questions.
- Have students list or discuss the career readiness skills referenced in the guest speaker’s presentation.
- Allow time for a brief question and answer period.