Boot Camp gives CCHS seniors advice on interviews, people skills

CELINA – The second annual Clay County High School interview boot camp was held at the school recently, and organizers say it was a big success.

“The boot camp at CCHS provided our seniors with a mock interview, which included critiques and guidance, and help with resume writing,” said Jayne Donaldson, head of Career Technical Education (CTE) for the Clay County school system. “It also provided classroom instruction on everything from appearance and how to present yourself, to leadership skills and ‘what does your job future look like?’”

The Clay County Workforce Development Committee (WFD) worked in conjunction with the school system to make the event possible. WFD volunteers partnered with school system personnel and others to conduct the interviews, help write or improve resumes, and provide classroom instruction to participating seniors.

“It was a good day, and thanks to donations, we were able to reward the seniors with a pizza party and door prizes for everyone at the end of the day,” Donaldson said.

Volunteers made it possible

Volunteers for the event, who are members of the WFD, included representatives from the local Soil Conservation district, the American Job Center, Volunteer State Community College, the National Guard, Celina Health and Rehab, the state Board of Regents, state Vocational Rehab Services, the local chamber of commerce and others.

“We can’t thank our workforce committee volunteers enough,” said Kevin Donaldson, spokesman for WFD. “Everyone who was there has a regular job to do, but they took time off from that to help our high school seniors here in Clay County for an entire day. In addition to that, most of these folks sit around a table at least once a month to help us figure out how to better develop our workforce to improve our local economy. This isn’t an easy problem to solve, but we’re working on it.

“A majority of the seniors said they would like to be able to stay in Clay County, or come back after continuing their education,” Donaldson said. “We’re working to increase their chances of doing that.”