Reverse, Reverse

Students from Starkville Oktibbeha Consolidated School District’s Millsaps Career and Technology Center have flipped the script on the long-established forum of a career fair. Instead of browsing booth to booth, students manned their own booths to showcase their current skills and experience to potential employers, teachers and college representatives.

The students presenting came from various CTE classes, ranging from digital media and unmanned aviation to welding and horticulture. Classmates prepared for the fair by making and presenting portfolios, which included resumes, cover letters, teaching philosophies and pertinent class assignments.

This reverse career fair gave students the chance to not only establish connections for their future career paths, but also help to improve interpersonal skills, like dress and interviewing.

April Dill, who planned the event, told The Dispatch, “This is an opportunity to have our industry come, but our students to be the focus, with the goal of networking and then practicing their presentation skills and highlighting their resume and showing off the things we do in our classes.”

The school’s industry partners were invited to speak at the fair, along with college representatives and other local businesses. In this way, students had the opportunity to establish connections for their future careers.

While this was only the first year Millsaps CTE has hosted a reverse career fair, due to the success of the event, steps are already in place to host another next year.