JOG the Web: Career Development Conference

03/18/2024

Competitions in Learned JOG Skills at the CDC!

What’s more fun than a fun challenge of your skills? Our annual Career Development Conference (CDC) gives students from across our 5 counties that exact chance! Our competitors get to put the educational and vocational training they have gained to the test in a variety of career-based topics. The events are built to cover a wide array of soft skills training topics that competitors will need when they are entering the workforce. These competitions range from classic head-to-head style challenges to presentations of work that has already been achieved, like the Cover Design and Students for Service competitions.

Here is a general summary of what each competition is like and its goal:

Knowledge Bowl: This competition gives participants the opportunity to gain knowledge/skills on various situations in business, industry, and parliamentary procedure, alongside employability skills.

Prepared Speaking: Participants present a prepared speech, three to five minutes in length. The speech must reflect the overall theme of how JOG has positively impacted the participant.

Career Preparation: This event aims to inspire participants to be proactive in a selected career field and gain confidence in speaking about why the career is the right fit for them.

Students for Service: Teams of two will create and present a display of their JOG chapter’s community service projects to judges.

Employability Skills: Through a resume, cover letter and interview participants display their knowledge as it pertains to employment.

Decision Making: This event provides the student with the opportunity to display decision making skills by presenting situations related to employment, peer groups, and school situations.

Financial Literacy: The goal of this competition is to encourage participants to develop skills related to financial literacy including money management, budgeting, bank accounts, interest rates, basic investing, credit cards, saving money, and financial safety.

Business Plan: This event provides competitors with the opportunity to work as a team to develop a proposal to form a small business. Any type of business may be the focus of the proposed small business.

Cover Design: To demonstrate artistic, creative, and imaginative abilities on a cover design used to promote the Career Development Conference and Jobs for Ohio’s Graduates.

As you can see, there is a wide variety of ways for our competitors to flex their work-readiness knowledge. No matter what career they are going into, competitors are able to gain skills that will be applicable to any job like financial literacy and decision making. We are so proud of all of our entrants, and we are excited to see these competitions unfold! Keep an eye on social media during and after the conference for photos of our competitors hard at work!