Clubs give Anaconda kids an advantage for post-high school life

Too Much Information

On December 10, I spent the majority of my day at the Anaconda School District office in a newly remodeled room with Anaconda School District Superintendent Tiffany Rehbein scoring junior high and high school students on their job interview skills as part of Business Professionals of America’s (BPA) Region 4 conference.

I’ve told several people this over the last week and the response I usually get is something along the lines of “How old are these kids? I’m X years old and I still don’t have good interview skills.”

None of the students Dr. Rehbein and I mock-interviewed were from Anaconda, but they were from fellow southwest Montana schools, including Helena High School, East Helena High School and Jefferson High School in Boulder. 

Our youngest interviewee was probably around 13 years old, dressed in a suit and tie, and much of the work experience he referenced in his responses were to his time on the basketball team, his eyes lighting up every time he mentioned it.

One of the older kids we interviewed had hands-on computer experience interning and later working for his school’s IT department, which was maybe the most impressive work history of any student we interviewed. However, he scored lower than the junior high student, on my rankings at least, because he didn’t seem as interested in or passionate about the interview, and therefore came off as less prepared.

Dr. Rehbein and I had nine questions we asked our interviewees, ranging from questions about their computer and technology experience to what gets them up in the morning to how they’d like others to describe their work ethic.

At the end of the interview, when Dr. Rehbein and I asked the students if they had any questions for us, most of the had pre-written questions like what the culture of our fictitious company was like, what the benefits were like, and what opportunities for growth the company had.

Dr. Rehbein and I didn’t know a lot about the fictitious company outside of the name, so we opted to tell the students about our real jobs, which I felt was very beneficial to the students– to have the opportunity to learn the honest truth about real jobs from people who were actively in the work force.

Dr. Rehbein has conducted hundreds of interviews in real life – her words – while I haven’t conducted any, and because the organization she works for is a public school, she was able to give the kids more of the answers they were looking for in terms of a 401(k) and what promotion opportunities look like for teachers, and when she thought I said something important, she would point it out to the student so they could think about it more.

And I thought to myself how amazing it was that these 13, 14, 15, 16-year-old kids were being given the opportunity to learn about health and 401(k) plans years before they will need that vocabulary so they know what to look for and can plan to get there now.

I personally didn’t know what a 401(k) was until I was 22, and health plans to this day confound me. Just knowing those things and having the opportunity to ask questions about them now puts them light-years ahead.

Each student was also required to create a resume and cover letter to be submitted to their advisors prior to the events.

One of my colleagues asked me in disbelief what a 13-year-old could possibly have to put on a resume and cover letter, and I explained that if they hadn’t had their first formal job yet, students often wrote about their extracurricular or volunteer experience.

And honestly, knowing how to properly prepare for an interview, come across as knowledgeable and interested, and write a high-quality resume and cover letter when you have little work experience might be the most valuable skill of all. Because we’ve all been there: applying for our first job, wondering how the heck to persuade someone to hire you to do a job when you’ve never before been paid to do said job – or any job – before.

To be honest, the trick to writing a resume and cover letter well enough to get an employer to want to interview you has always eluded me.

Especially when I was fresh out of high school, I had no idea what I would be walking into when faced with my first job interview, and I didn’t have any adults who felt they could advise me on how to write a resume or cover letter. Troy High School also didn’t offer BPA, Speech and Debate, or any sort of leadership or community service group outside of National Honors Society.

My father was at least two decades removed from writing a cover letter or resume, so I didn’t have that resource to draw from.

In one of the dual credit English courses I took as a junior, the instructor tasked us with writing a resume and cover letter and then gave us feedback, which was helpful, but when I walked into my first interview later that year and was asked questions like, "How would you deal with a difficult coworker?” I was a deer in the headlights

That’s why clubs like Business Professionals of America are so important. I’ve often heard recent and not-so-recent high school graduates alike lament about how high schools should teach real life skills. Things like how to change a tire, how to manage a budget, how to plan and prepare a household’s meals for a month are often brought up, but things like interviews, resumes and cover letters are things I hear less often.

For students like myself, who don’t have a resource network of knowledgeable adults to prepare them for interviews and writing resumes and cover letters, clubs like this are a lifeline.

Additionally, clubs like speech and debate and Anaconda Community Intervention (ACI) and its counterpart Anaconda Leadership Academy (ALA) can help with the public speaking and confidence skills needed for interviews and with things to put on a resume.

I’m not only talking about the clubs themselves, although those certainly can be put on a resume, but the volunteer experience, leadership, and community service experience students gain from ACI, like the one covered in today’s paper, are a huge step up.

And as someone who freelances and is constantly applying and advertising for freelance work, I can say in no uncertain terms that the job market is a circus right now. I recently applied for a freelance contract that got – wait for it – 700+ applicants, no that’s not a typo, in less than 48 hours. And that’s not the first time that’s been the case in recent months. 

A couple months ago I saw a role I was interested in posted, and someone had been hired within 18 hours – before I could even apply. New (or even veteran) job seekers are in desperate need of any advantage they can get.

So if you’re looking for some way to volunteer in the new year, consider helping out with some of these clubs or reaching out to give students opportunities to volunteer with your organization. Become an ALA coach and mentor kids on how to interview or exist in a job. You might just might help their career in ways you can’t imagine.