I missed the afternoon rush at JobFest. According to the organizer, about 50 high school students showed up right after school to check out the career fair/rock show.
“Once they realized what it was they were here a lot longer than they thought they would be,” a JobFest host told me.
By the time I got there at about 4 p.m., they were gone. The band, Acres of Lions, were playing to pretty much just the organizers. The only teenagers there – the target market for JobFest – were children of employees of the employment centre.
The weather couldn’t have helped; a torrent of rain fell during the first few hours, but by the time I got there, it had stopped and there was a bit of sun poking through the clouds.
I acknowledge readily that I wasn’t there long, however people that I know showed up before and after me also reported seeing very few people around.
Besides the music and free swag (guitar pics, drum sticks, neon sunglasses, T-shirts and more), the main feature of JobFest was the series of iPad apps on hand. One was called Boss Yourself – it presented a series of tests to see if you are capable of running your own business.
The big one was Build-a-Career, which presented four series of 17 questions and gave you a list of recommended jobs after each series. The final list was supposedly the most accurate.
I spent some time talking to one of the JobFest hosts, who said she wasn’t allowed to be interviewed. She was a graduate in broadcast journalism and the career builder program recommended she be a librarian. Another host said she got a variety of responses, but the most common was optometrist.
NiiNoi Tetteh, a grade nine student, took the Build-a-Career test. Aircraft assembler came up for him, as well as jobs in oil and gas, he said. The latter, he has considered, though his dream is to make the NHL and he has also thought of becoming a physical trainer.
He said the results helped a little bit. “I never knew about that kind of job.”
I decided to take the test myself. For phase 1, I received ‘Librarian.’ Phase 2 turned up ‘Records clerk’ (not nearly as exciting as record store clerk, but OK). For phase 3, the results took a real turn, and my recommended job was Agricultural Inspector.
My results in phase 4, which is supposed to give the most accurate results, ran the gamut from actor to financial officer to specialized doctor to food processing supervisor.
I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Anyone who saw me in my high school’s grade seven production of Robin Hood will tell me I’m no actor.
The rest of the results were so varied, I don’t know what to make of them. I can only surmise three things:
1. The program is faulty.
2. I didn’t answer truthfully.
3. I’m good at almost everything.
Notably, journalist didn’t show up anywhere in my results. Fortunately, if I do decide to change career paths, train operator also came up as a 100 per cent match, so at least I know I have a future in Revelstoke.