CareerLink holding poster contest

BY KELLY URBAN
The Tribune-Democrat

October 04, 2008 09:47 pm

— As part of the state-wide health careers week in November, Cambria County CareerLink has kicked off its third annual poster contest for area high school students.
The contest asks students to design a poster that represents a career that is currently in demand in the state. Those include occupations in advanced materials and diversified manufacturing, building and construction, information and communications, life sciences and logistics and transportation.
The deadline for submissions is Oct. 17.
“We contacted 17 high schools to get the word out and so far we’ve received 30 posters from Greater Johnstown Career & Technology Center,” said Michelle Mauro, career planner, Goodwill Industries/Cambria County CareerLink. “We’ve received some really neat posters.”
The posters will be reviewed by a panel of judges who will be looking at criteria such as size and originality. Prizes will be awarded to first, second and third places, with the winning entries being displayed at Cambria County CareerLink.
“We want students to be creative so they can design what they want,” Mauro said. “A lot have catchy slogans that promote that specific career.”
Mauro added she expects to have a steady flow of posters arriving until the deadline.
“We usually get 30-some, and we already have that, so I hope we get a bunch more this year,” she said.
In conjunction with the poster contest, Cambria County CareerLink and Goodwill Industries are teaming up to hold a job fair at 11 Cambria County high schools to give students a close look at these selected careers.
“This will be held Nov. 10 through 21, and we are looking for 10 businesses and industries to divide up their time to go to schools and talk about the careers,” Mauro said.
Essentially, companies would be asked to set up a booth, hand out literature and speak on that field.
“It would be great if they would have hands-on props so kids could check out what is involved,” Mauro said.
She said it would be an added bonus to see school alumni get involved so students could see that these people were once in their shoes and this is what they had to do to get their job.
“This is a good opportunity for businesses to recruit students,” Mauro said.

To participate
Goodwill and Cambria County CareerLink are asking businesses to contact them if they would like to participate in the Careers in Demand Showcase for high school students. Contact Michelle Mauro at 533-2493, ext. 281 or Nancy Peck at 533-2493, ext. 264 for more information.