I often look back at career day events where I have participated when thinking about how they worked and how I can adjust my software to better help facilitate the scheduling. I think back to some of my first events where I spoke and where I was constantly checking on how the software was working for the day.

In one particular event, I arrived a little early so I could get registered as a speaker and then get to work making sure there were no last minute issues with the software. As I walked in, I was greeted by student volunteers to find my name badge, welcome packet, and room number, and then I was escorted to the breakfast room. Wow, this was nice surprise! There was a setup of coffee, muffins, danishes, and other assorted simple breakfast foods. And I had a chance to sit and relax and talk to some of the other speakers. Then when it was time to start the career day, someone came in and escorted us to our rooms so we didn’t have to go searching.

That was my perspective as a speaker. Now I look back as someone who has been involved in a number of career day events and what ‘really’ goes on during the day. At the time, I didn’t think much of not seeing the counselor in charge of the event until everything started – I was escorted by volunteers I had never met before. What was REALLY happening was the counselor was frantically calling the speakers who haven’t shown up yet, or needed help finding the school, or didn’t know where to park, or even how to get in the building. Plus I’m sure there are so many other logistical details that just lump on more stress. But as a speaker, I didn’t see any of that. I saw an organized event where I could relax and grab a bite and some coffee and socialize before the event – and the room was available throughout the day to grab a quick coffee as time permitted. That left a great impression.

So, as always, I picked up a few lessons from this experience:

1. It’s definitely good to get everyone at the event early. Food is ALWAYS a good motivator! Give your speakers a time to arrive and let them know there will be coffee, breakfast, etc.


2. Use volunteers to usher the speakers. I don’t care how organized the event is – something will happen the morning of the event and you don’t want to rush your speakers around because you have to move on to other issues.


3. Help your speakers understand where to park, enter the building, etc. Remember, some speakers may not have stepped in a school in 20+ years! Provide maps to the school, diagrams for parking, etc. – Making things easier for them really just makes this easier for you!

And if you’re not currently doing career day events, I hope these emails maybe give you some ideas in the future, or at least gives you a chance to take a break and read a story. If you know anyone who is putting on a career day and has some issues, feel free to pass this along. And by all means if you have any stories or thoughts (or better ideas than the ones I’m sharing), please let me know and I’ll send it out as a future email and let everyone know where it came from. With all of you out there, I know you have great ideas that can help each other out.

If you missed any of our previous emails, you can get to them here.
If you want to see our scheduling tool in action (videos), you can get to them here.

– Scott