Students get hands-on experience at “career speed dating” event

Career Transitions is an organization that works with 67 schools in southwestern Alberta. Their goal is to introduce students to careers and occupations to arm them with information to make course selection and career choices once they graduate high school. On Wednesday they held their EPIC Day, which stands for Exploring Possible Industries and Careers. Executive Director for Career Transitions, Judy Stolk-Ingram says, the event helps young people expand their horizon of possibilities.

Students are placed in one of 11 zones, each with filled with organizations from a variety of fields such as trades, health, STEM, agriculture and environment, and one wildcard field.  Then the students are divided into groups of six, and spend 20-minutes with each organization to see what they have to offer.  Stolk-Ingram calls this concept, career speed-dating. And she says the feedback from students has been positive.

Southland Trailer Corp is among the largest employers down here in southern Alberta. They say events like these target the type of talent they are looking for.

Plant Manager for Southland Trailer, TJ Dow adds, their presence at last year’s event, brought in piles of resumes.

The event is funded through school divisions, post-secondary institutions as well as corporate sponsors.