Roundtable Career Discussions…a never-ending career fair!
Purpose: A Career Roundtable session provides a personal, interactive, informational interview of a professional who is currently working in a career pathway that is of genuine interest to a student. The one-hour long session is exploratory in nature and provides a student with a ‘career fair’ experience, yet it is more directive, flexible, manageable and personal.
Description: These one-hour long sessions are exploratory in nature and will take place during seminar (Wednesday’s) throughout the school year. Each session will initially consist of an industry representative(s) and anywhere from 10-50 students. There will be approximately 10 sessions during the school year. Every effort will be made to represent as many of the 16 career clusters as possible.
Student Participants: For a student to participate in a roundtable session, he or she will have completed a series of career assessment-work on the Kansas Career Pipeline, be identified as a concentrator in a particular pathway. Each student will need to prepare at least three questions prior to the interview. Students will be encouraged to talk one-on-one following the presentation..
Industry Representative: The industry representative will come prepared to answer numerous questions about his/her career experience. They will be introduced by the roundtable host, give a brief professional background summary and then begin fielding questions. Each student will be provided a list of potential questions but the industry representative will be expected to ‘guide’ the discussion. Industry Representatives will be encouraged to talk one-on-one with students as time permits.
Post-Roundtable Opportunities: Opportunities for students and businesses following these roundtables include setting up more in-depth informational interviews, job shadows, group visits/tours, internships, student-competition advisement and mentoring, and possible future employment.