State Launches Effort to Educate Youth About ND Careers

Press Release

State Launches Effort to Educate Youth About ND Careers

Gov. John Hoeven and the North Dakota Department of Commerce today launched a statewide career promotion effort to educate high school students, parents, teachers and counselors about career opportunities in North Dakota.

One of the main tools used to reach students will be interactive webcam "career conversations" between students in a classroom and workers in high wage/high demand occupations. Gov. Hoeven helped demonstrate this program today with Mandan High School students who conversed via webcam with service technician Patrick McConnell who is employed with Fargo-based Titan Machinery. The goal of the career promotion program is to provide current information about careers that have a strong future in North Dakota to high school students and adults who are advising them.

Hoeven said in order to meet North Dakota's workforce needs, the state is working to attract people from out of state and to retain residents who already live here. Career conversations is an effort aimed at retaining young North Dakotans.

"This is an effort to reach out directly to young people and encourage them to build their future in North Dakota," Hoeven said. "We have thousands of good job opportunities for young people in our state today. This program will better inform parents and students about jobs and careers that have a promising future in our state by going right to the source for this information, people in the field working in today's high-demands careers."

Today's conversation and all future Career Conversations will be posted for viewing anytime by students, parents or other classrooms at www.ndworkforce.com. A second career conversation is scheduled for Monday, Nov. 3 at 10 a.m. at the West Fargo High School Auditorium. Nearly 300 students are expected to participate and will listen to experts in engineering, technology and agriculture. Media are welcome to attend.
"This program fills an important void by connecting students with practical, current information about career opportunities available in our state," Alyssa Brandt, Mandan High School teacher and career counselor, said. "It will help students receive the real first-hand knowledge about careers that they need in order to make good decisions about their futures."

The goal of this pilot program is to reach 900 students and 12 schools across the state by May 2009. Schools and businesses can participate for free and Commerce will provide a webcam on loan for their use. Business and schools can go online to apply at www.ndworkforce.com and click on the career conversations image.

Bob Pope of Nexus Innovations in Bismarck has struggled to recruit employees with IT skills. "We are excited about Career Conversations because we believe it will give a vision to the students of careers and jobs, like those in our company, that can be available to them right here in North Dakota," Pope said. "We are very pleased the state is leading this effort to help address our workforce needs."

Career Conversations is a collaborative effort between the North Dakota Department of Commerce, Career and Technical Education, the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction, Job Service of North Dakota and representatives from North Dakota targeted industries.

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