Business Is Booming

SeniorYearCollective.mp3
Narrator: [00:00:01] Business is booming. From the small mom and pops to the big industries. Our local businesses drive our economy and provide the products, services and jobs we depend on. Our host, Jennifer McCurdy, brings us these stories as she visits with the business owners and leaders of Fort Payne and DeKalb County, Alabama. And now here's Jennifer.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:00:25] Welcome back. My business is booming. Podcast listeners, I am super excited today because my friend Stephen Smith is back in the studio with me. Stephen, thank you for joining me today. He's with Rare Life Media and typically he is my co-host for all things small business. We did we've done a series on that and this is kind of keeping with that series. It's a little different today in that we're going to be talking about a platform senioryearcollective.com that I am super passionate about. But Stephen, welcome and thanks for being here with me today.

Stephen Smith: [00:01:02] Absolutely, Jennifer, it's great to be back on the show. And I love this program that you've gotten started. So I'm interested in hearing about the impetus of it and see how it all came about for you.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:01:13] This is going to be a little different to our listeners today, because Stephen is sort of interviewing me a little bit. So let's see how it feels to be in the seat where you're being asked the questions.

[00:01:24] Yeah, I'm putting you in the hot seat.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:01:25] Being asked the questions. Yeah. So go ahead.

Stephen Smith: [00:01:29] So yep. You're in the hot seat today Jennifer. And we're going to be talking about the senior year collective that's found at senioryearcollective.com. It's a great program that you've gotten started with the chamber. And when did you bring the website online?

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:01:42] It's just been online probably a month now. So we're in the end of October, so probably about the first of October. And it came about because our local students, seniors in high school and our businesses were looking to connect with one another. You know, we're always saying we need to get our students in the pipeline before they leave DeKalb County. So even if they do leave and go off to college or wherever they may end up, they're still connected somehow with DeKalb County. And maybe we can get them back to DeKalb County working. And so this program was kind of derived from that. How can we do that? How can we capture those students information and not just capture their information, but be a resource for them, their senior year of high school to make it the best year possible? So through just kind of thinking like, how can how can we even know what their needs are? We surveyed over 780 seniors in DeKalb County. Can you believe that? That's a lot I know, I think so too. So we surveyed our seniors and we did it with the help of our career coaches. And for the listeners who may not know, our high schools have career coaches now, and they kind of take on a role that the counselors were trying to do, and with all the other duties that the counselors had to do.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:03:07] So now the career coaches are there to kind of work with their seniors, to get them on a career path or employed even as far as career readiness programs. So I worked with them and we sent out a survey and we had a 48% response rate. That's great. I know it's huge. I mean, for surveys, who who likes to take a survey? But they did it. And so now with that we have their email addresses. And we were able to also learn what they're looking for out of their senior year. And the majority of our seniors said they would love to have more job shadowing opportunities. And you think about that. You only know what you're exposed to. We all do. Right? And you might think, oh, that looks like a cool job. I think I might like to do that, but once you're in it, it maybe isn't what you thought it was. But also while you're there, you may find something else you like better than what you thought you were. Am I going in circles better than what you thought you would like? So giving the students an opportunity to job shadow personally to me is the best thing that our business community can do. Any business can do this, I don't care. Restaurant, retail. If you are, make steel, you have accounting.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:04:26] You have, you know, marketing people in your business. All positions that you have are children need exposed to that. Our seniors need exposure to those positions. So you have to post them though on our website to make it effective. And that is what I really kind of. Encouraging our business community to community to do just go online at senior year collective.com and post job shadowing opportunities. That's not all you can post on there. We have stuff that help, like career readiness scholarships. If your business offers scholarships to students, you can post those on there. It's it's intended to be a one stop shop for our seniors if they're interested in learning about volunteer opportunities. The Lions Club has posted something on our website just encouraging students to come to one of their meetings and learn more about what they do and think about that. We want our children in the future to be civic minded, right? And they need that exposure early on. As they move through life, they'll remember that and maybe think, you know, that was a great organization that gives back to their community. So I just think that there are so many things on the senior year collective that benefit not just our only our seniors, but in the community as a whole. And we're looking forward to seeing seeing that grow.

Stephen Smith: [00:05:47] And as a small business owner the benefit to them is both short term and long term. When it comes to exposing high school seniors to what they do.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:05:57] Yes. I mean, you're getting them in your place of business too. So even if, I mean, you could possibly get an employee out of it, but also you could. They're going to spread the word. Have you heard about this place? And they may tell a friend. And so it's the trickle effect as well. We have some people who've posted jobs on our senior year collective that are looking for, I mean, any job you have, you can put on there. If a senior can do the job 18 or above or even 17, and a lot of our retailers and restaurants can hire people who are younger to do jobs that maybe some of the larger industries might not can do. But those jobs need to be posted on there as well. Our seniors are a lot of them are looking for work, and a good many of our seniors are really to support. Their families have to work, and they need to know about these jobs. And this and I guess what makes it different is. There. It's being promoted throughout the school system through the career coaches and the teachers there, making sure that the students know about this website and this this place that you can go to find information. Of course, they have the information too, but they don't have all of it. This is a one stop shop.

Stephen Smith: [00:07:10] So yeah, you can't you can't go into many retail establishments and restaurants and things of that nature now without seeing signs that they're wanting part time help. So yeah, this is a great way to connect those opportunities where you may have a student come in and do some job shadowing. And they learned component of that operation. And then they realized there's an opportunity to get their foot in the door there with a part time position. But it's also a long term investment for that company too, right? Because those seniors hopefully will come back and they will have been exposed to that business. And it gives them an opportunity to build into the community, I guess you would say.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:07:54] 100%. I mean, that goes back to your you only know what you're exposed to in so many students really have limited exposure to. Even I remember. I mean, when I was in high school, we had. Are you going to be a nurse? Are you going to be a teacher? What are you going to do? That was it. And if you put your head around God, the millions of jobs that we don't even have a clue are out there. Honestly. Because every place takes every look around your room that you're sitting in. Now, for all of our listeners. People made those whatever. The sofa, the whatever. And there's different components to that. And there's different computer software programs or are so big now. I mean, are people looking into that locally? I don't know.

Stephen Smith: [00:08:43] So and I heard an interesting statistic the other day that there's an estimate that there's a I forget what the number was, but it was, you know, a big percentage of the jobs that people will be working 10 or 15 years from now do not exist today. You know, our economy and the way our society runs is, you know, just advancing so, so rapidly that there are things that we're going to need as a society that we don't need today. Right. And so none of those are just going to crop up out of nowhere. They're going to be related to the work that we do today. That's right. And so getting these kids the opportunity, the exposure to how things work, and you know, as well as I do, a lot of, you know, a lot of kids get to their senior year and they're busy with activities and everything. And they, you know, they haven't had as much exposure to how things work in general. So this gives them a good idea of shadowing, gives them a great opportunity. Yeah. To to to be exposed to that.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:09:50] And one thing that I love another well another thing that I love about Senior Year Collective is that it's all inclusive. Anybody any senior in high school can take advantage of this. And we plan to do more as we grow. I mean, this is our first year, but we do plan to offer more workshops, leadership workshops and networking opportunities because we've got 780 seniors spread out all around DeKalb County. We want to give our seniors an opportunity to get together with one another and just meet each other and meet our local businesses and in a casual setting, and get to know one another and get to know the businesses. So those things will come. And you know how you always have the top few in each class that are just born leaders, and they're always on top of things and chosen for most things because they're on top of things. But I know there are people that are sitting in the middle of the class that also have a desire to be leaders, and they just maybe haven't found their voice, or they don't have a parent pushing them to step up and take that chance. So we hope that this platform gives them an opportunity to engage more and be more of a leader and step into positions and roles and do things that maybe they necessarily didn't feel like they should or didn't have a voice to do. Or maybe no one was encouraging them to do. We want students. If you're listening and you're a senior, you please, we all we want to support you. We want you to do well. We want you to graduate and do something that you want to do and be successful in that our whole community does, honestly, our businesses, our entire community, that's our goal for you is to be successful, and we're excited to help you do that.

Stephen Smith: [00:11:44] We're looking at the website. There's also a role to play of those businesses out there who might say, well, because of OSHA regulations or whatever, I can't bring in an 18 year old into my operation. You know, we're light manufacturing or heavy manufacturing or whatever. There's still a role that they can play. There's also a sponsorship opportunity to help fund the program. Right? Yes.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:12:07] Obviously, programs aren't free. So we do. We have asked that some of our businesses and that's that maybe can't participate in other ways. Or even if you can do both, we're great with that. Help us fund the program so that we can keep our website going. We would love to have more staff to help, help do more with the program, obviously, and our workshops that we hope to host. I mean, we can't do those unless we have funding to do so. This was just created on a whim, on a shoestring budget, just to because we saw the need and the chamber said, hey, we're going to take the initiative, we're going to get it started. And once we do, and people we know will see the value in this, and then they'll get behind us and support us on this. So we started it just knowing because we believed in it that others would too, and that they would help us with it. So but we really we really need our businesses to post job shadowing internships on our website. I promise you, it takes like two minutes of your time and and it's worth it. You're going to find that students are going to want to do this. And. I think you're going to be surprised at how smart our seniors are and how engaging they are. So take a chance on them.

Stephen Smith: [00:13:23] All right. Well, also, you mentioned the career coaches. How have they responded to this project across the county?

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:13:30] Oh, on board completely 100%. They've been wonderful to work with and we couldn't have done our surveys without them. It's a tool for them. It helps them as well. I mean, instead of having to go to multiple places and post and this is a one stop shop. So and I have career coaches say to me, we have a student looking for. Health care, for instance, in this specific field. Can you help us with that? So because we it's so new, we don't have a lot of job shadowing opportunities currently. But after this podcast, I know it's going to change. I'll reach out to health care providers and say, hey, can you please just go online? And we've had some response with that, but it's just it's taken me individually reaching out to people to try to based on the needs that are expressed through the students, through the career coaches. So they love it though.

Stephen Smith: [00:14:23] Great. Yeah, we're going to find that at senioryearcollective.com and go on there as a business and take a look at opportunities for you to participate, job shadowing opportunities and internships, scholarships.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:14:39] Volunteer opportunities and Northeast I mean, that's another not not all students are going to. We go straight to college. I mean, some prefer a trade in Northeast Community College can help you with that. There are certificate programs there. And also if you work for a chamber member, if you're a student or any, any employee of a chamber member can receive a 20% tuition discount at Northeast Community College, Northeast Alabama Community College, or at Jacksonville State University. So if you work for and that's to me, a good incentive for you to find a chamber member and work for them. So if you're not employed and you're looking for someone to work for and go back to school, or even if you are in school and looking for a part time job, you can save 20% off your tuition by working for a chamber member.

Stephen Smith: [00:15:30] That's real money.

[00:15:30] That's real money. So keep that in mind, everyone.

Stephen Smith: [00:15:34] And of course, students and any parents may be listening to this. Encourage your students to go on there if they're in their senior year or entering their senior year. Go on and check out all the opportunities that are on the website. And again, that is senior year collective.com.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:15:49] And you can follow Senior Year Collective on Instagram. We're just getting started. Okay. We are looking for senior ambassadors. So if you're at a one of our schools within the county system and interested in and your social media media savvy, specifically Instagram, reach out to us at info at senioryearcollective.com, info at senioryearcollective.com and we'll get back with you. We'd love for you to be a part of our ambassador team.

Stephen Smith: [00:16:18] That's a great idea. I'm sure a lot of seniors would be interested in becoming an ambassador there and helping spread the word. Yeah. All right. It's a great project. Good visiting with you about that today. And just encourage everyone to check that out at senior year collective.com.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:16:34] Thank you Stephen. Thank you.

Stephen Smith: [00:16:35] Jennifer.

Narrator: [00:16:37] You've been listening to Business Is Booming a podcast brought to you by Fort Payne Chamber of Commerce. The host is chamber director Jennifer McCurdy. Executive producer Steven B Smith. Our engineer is Lucas Smith of Lucky Sound Studios. Business Is Booming is a production of Rare Life Media.