Engaging Middle School Career Development
By Michelle Shepherd | January 2024
Career development is a journey that our students embark on at a very young age. As students grow, they learn more about themselves and their interests, which ultimately helps them identify their career path. However, the career development process is not limited to choosing a career. It's a lifelong process of learning, exploring and growing. As school counselors, we know our lessons must be engaging and fun to capture our students' attention. Let’s dive into some excellent career readiness lessons you can do with your students.
Career Café
Hosting a Career Café is an excellent way to get students thinking about education options after high school. Invite speakers from your local community college, military recruiting and skilled trades. Set up a cozy location in your building that can hold several classes. Guests should speak for 10–15 minutes about their post-high school options. They can describe what jobs can be earned after participating in their opportunities and what it looks like to enter the military, community college or technical school. Leave time for students to ask the panel questions.
You can host a virtual Career Café when you are short on time or volunteers. Sometimes bringing in volunteers is challenging. When you run into this issue, you can ask your volunteers to record a 10-minute video or do a video chat with your students. Are you looking for a Career Café your students can do independently? Modify this virtual Career Cafe to meet your students’ needs.
Career Breakout Room
Playing a career breakout room with students teaches the career skills you are looking to develop and helps students work on employability skills such as communication, collaboration and leadership. Breakout Edu offers virtual breakout games for students, among other resources. Google Forms are also a great way to create your own breakout games. You can design and create your puzzles and themes to meet your needs, with focus on career exploration or employability skills.
Career Games
Students love the interactivity of games. One of our favorite student games is the Life Size Game of Life. The game is free and the site provides the printables you need to run your game, along with directions. It is best to set up two game boards for a class of 25-30 students. Students should work in pairs, with one person being the “piece” on the board and the other being the runner – rolling the dice and going to the bank.
Playing games with students is a fun way to reinforce career readiness and exploration. We enjoy playing games like Knockout, Jeopardy, Classroom Feud and Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Our students get competitive and don’t realize they are learning while playing. I have created games for our students covering topics such as Getting the Job, Keeping the Job, Career Exploration and Career Clusters.
Career Exploration
Sometimes, students need time to explore and discover their interests. Our students enjoy taking interest inventories and then using those results to discover careers that align with their interests and strengths. These resources are helpful for students to do before they head to a career fair.
Free online exploration resources include:
We often think of a career fair for juniors and seniors, but students can benefit so much from being exposed to unfamiliar careers beginning at an early age. We host a career fair for our 4th- through 8th- grade students. Watching students get excited about jobs they have never thought about is rewarding and fun.
Career fairs are a lot of organization and planning, but they have a powerful impact on students. We set up in our fieldhouse and have moveable bleachers in front of our presenters. Students do an excellent job sitting as a class for 5–10 minutes in front of each presenter before rotating to the next. We reach out to our parents through newsletters to get parent volunteers to come in and present for the day on their profession.
Whether you are a pro at incorporating career exploration into your yearly calendar or just looking to start an activity with your students, you can set a goal to try one new career exploration activity this year. I hope you and your students find these activities fun and engaging!
Michelle Shepherd works in Engaging Career Exploration at Mt. Vernon Middle School in Fortville, Ind. Contact her at michelle.shepherd@mvcsc.k12.in.us.
Career Café
Hosting a Career Café is an excellent way to get students thinking about education options after high school. Invite speakers from your local community college, military recruiting and skilled trades. Set up a cozy location in your building that can hold several classes. Guests should speak for 10–15 minutes about their post-high school options. They can describe what jobs can be earned after participating in their opportunities and what it looks like to enter the military, community college or technical school. Leave time for students to ask the panel questions.
You can host a virtual Career Café when you are short on time or volunteers. Sometimes bringing in volunteers is challenging. When you run into this issue, you can ask your volunteers to record a 10-minute video or do a video chat with your students. Are you looking for a Career Café your students can do independently? Modify this virtual Career Cafe to meet your students’ needs.
Career Breakout Room
Playing a career breakout room with students teaches the career skills you are looking to develop and helps students work on employability skills such as communication, collaboration and leadership. Breakout Edu offers virtual breakout games for students, among other resources. Google Forms are also a great way to create your own breakout games. You can design and create your puzzles and themes to meet your needs, with focus on career exploration or employability skills.
Career Games
Students love the interactivity of games. One of our favorite student games is the Life Size Game of Life. The game is free and the site provides the printables you need to run your game, along with directions. It is best to set up two game boards for a class of 25-30 students. Students should work in pairs, with one person being the “piece” on the board and the other being the runner – rolling the dice and going to the bank.Playing games with students is a fun way to reinforce career readiness and exploration. We enjoy playing games like Knockout, Jeopardy, Classroom Feud and Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Our students get competitive and don’t realize they are learning while playing. I have created games for our students covering topics such as Getting the Job, Keeping the Job, Career Exploration and Career Clusters.
Career Exploration
Sometimes, students need time to explore and discover their interests. Our students enjoy taking interest inventories and then using those results to discover careers that align with their interests and strengths. These resources are helpful for students to do before they head to a career fair.
Free online exploration resources include:
- Learning Style Assessment
- Career Cluster Finder (includes a career list based on results from O-Net)
- Career Key Test (based on Holland Codes)
- MI Advantage
- Roadtrip Nation Career Exploration
- The College Board College Search
- O-Net Interest Profiler
- My Next Move (O-Net, career research)
We often think of a career fair for juniors and seniors, but students can benefit so much from being exposed to unfamiliar careers beginning at an early age. We host a career fair for our 4th- through 8th- grade students. Watching students get excited about jobs they have never thought about is rewarding and fun.
Career fairs are a lot of organization and planning, but they have a powerful impact on students. We set up in our fieldhouse and have moveable bleachers in front of our presenters. Students do an excellent job sitting as a class for 5–10 minutes in front of each presenter before rotating to the next. We reach out to our parents through newsletters to get parent volunteers to come in and present for the day on their profession.
Whether you are a pro at incorporating career exploration into your yearly calendar or just looking to start an activity with your students, you can set a goal to try one new career exploration activity this year. I hope you and your students find these activities fun and engaging!
Michelle Shepherd works in Engaging Career Exploration at Mt. Vernon Middle School in Fortville, Ind. Contact her at michelle.shepherd@mvcsc.k12.in.us.