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Construction industries are facing a shortage of both labor and skills. Companies are having a difficult time filling their open positions, with a potential shortage of 1.9 million craft professionals through 2025.
With a surplus of open positions comes the responsibility for construction companies to go out and connect with local classrooms. For the future of the industry, it is vital to show middle and high school students that a career as a craft professional is valuable and offers many benefits and unique opportunities.
Build Your Future (BYF) understands it can be challenging to start connecting with local schools. Below are three tips to aid industry professionals when reaching out to create a classroom connection.
BYF has created numerous resources to help construction companies boost their recruiting efforts. One of these resources is our Student Outreach Guide, which provides tips and tricks on how to go about creating mutually beneficial relationships between industry and education. The Outreach Guide walks through who to contact, what questions to ask the educator, how to connect with them and how to follow up after connecting. Our guide includes email templates and helpful hints for attending career day events.
Another resource is BYF’s classroom toolkits, which are full of materials to bring to a classroom presentation. These packages include flyers, posters, trinkets and more to help make your trip into a classroom a success.
BYF also offers various other free resources to help industry professionals showcase careers in construction.
With the fall approaching, school is in session and so is Careers in Construction Month (CICM)! There are various ways for educators and industry to get involved in CICM this October. One way is to take the CICM pledge. The pledge aims to spread the word about the wide range of successful construction career paths while promoting positive perceptions of the industry.
By signing the pledge, you agree to participate in one classroom engagement during October. Once the engagement has been completed, you will be entered into a drawing to win one of four $5,000 scholarships to a secondary craft training program of your choice.
Want to attend an in-person workshop and conference designed to help you learn how to build industry/education partnerships? You can attend the Construction Career Pathways Conference, hosted by the National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER) and Build Your Future.
At this one-day event, you will learn best practices from nationally recognized programs, hear impactful success stories from young craft professionals and be part of the solution through collaborative group conversations and activities.
This year’s Pathways Conference is being held Wednesday, November 30 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Register today!
It is vital to the construction industry’s success to connect with our local educators.
By fostering this connection, we are opening the door for students to be aware of the benefits in the industry and allowing them the opportunity to become the next generation of craft professionals.
