First thoughts, what do you have on your mind about youth unemployment right now?

Yeah.

There's a lot going on and a lot of factors that are contributing to this.

And, um, one thing for certain is that myself and many other career professionals are working towards helping youth think about the formal and informal skills and experience they have, right? Like, when you think about school, there's teamwork, there's collaboration, there's communication skills, and they all add up in terms of transferable skills that will make youth un- em- employable.

And so it's about talking about why, um, how th- how they're relevant in their future workplaces.

So that's one of the many things that we're doing right now.

And, um, also just counseling and making sure that that youth, they're doing okay, that, um, we're all g- we're all here to help.

Good luck"?

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Goodness.

I'm going to start with my personal story and then a bunch of lessons will come out from there.

I did take advantage of an internship.

I was a co-op student at my university.

I thought I was going to go back to high school and teach just like one of my role models and mentor.

I did my first co-op work term at a summer camp, came out of it realizing, you know, I don't think it's a fit for me.

you also have this other catchphrase career influencers and we're not just talking about educators here can you tell tell me what that means

Maybe it's a stereotype, but a misnomer about summer jobs.

Mm hmm.

I think when we put the word summer in front of jobs, people tend to think, oh, it's a couple of months.

Right.

And the fact that the fact is when you are in the summer job applying, working your summer job, you gain so much more.

Yes.

Like you said, you may be saving money for plans for hockey gear for for life.

Let's talk about career changes because you guys have some tools there.

And there are some really great insights I'm sure that you could get and just start to apply to a resume.

I think there are prompts that you can share with AI.

I also think that you need to contextualize and give them the information that you're comfortable giving, which also speak to privacy and ethics of using that information too.

So back in the day, pre-AI, you're talking to a career development professional or an expert, and you're telling them about your lives and elements and things that make sense.

And together, the two of you would work together to figure out, okay, what are some of the common themes that are surfacing? And now maybe for the first step, you are leveraging AI a little bit, keeping in mind the information AI is feeding on is on what's available out there right now.

And so it's building on current information rather than new information.

So that is a caveat that I'll also share.

So are we disarmed at this point? Do we have to get in the game? Like, do we have to play nice in the sandbox? Because if you can't tell if that company has a human on the other end, it's filtering things just through the hiring board, or you can't tell how they're doing it for the humanity part.

So how do we navigate the you're overqualified? I'm sorry.

I love the two stories that you share because the consistent thread between the two is you're having honest, authentic conversation.

You put yourself out there and say, here's my situation.

Here's where things are at.

And I like what you added.

You know what? It puts everybody ahead when you have a very enthusiastic and competent employee, even for a short duration of time.

And a lot can change in the next six months and nine months.

What's your advice for current employers or excuse me for current employees to now actively seek out job listings that have salary bands on it because there could be some money on the table for you?

Should we be having those conversations, at least testing the water? I feel like it's a tiptoe into the water.

Yeah, and I think this is where career development professionals can have really good conversations with clients about this.

And you know, the idea of quitting too early, what is too early can be really subjective.

And I've been in situations where the clients that I work with, we come up with a list of everything that you need to do.

Before I consider leaving the organization, what are some of the things? It's wrapping up projects it is connecting meaningfully with the networks that you want to keep and stay in touch with and then it's you know have you asked for everything um that you needed in order to continue to do a good job and going back to your idea if a program, you know, when you're making pitches about professional development opportunities, what will $10,000, for instance, what will they get in return when they invest $10,000? Be intentional about showing what's the return on investments.

Of course, you benefit from the professional development, but how can you make it meaningful and worthwhile for them who's investing in you?

And what are a couple of things with this sort of refreshed, renewed feeling of a whole new year in front of us? A couple of things we should at least consider as we look at our jobs and look at our careers and what comes next.

I think if you choose to go back to school or if you choose to do anything different as we approach the new year, think about why your thinking change is important.

And so it's not like it was saying, Hey, do you, do you know how to turn off this setting on your phone? It really figured it out.

Nope.

Nope.

And, um, I think part of this is also getting people to think what are some of the things that they already come in about their, their career development.

So things like making a wrong choice could ruin their future.

Um, they, you have to find your passion before choosing a direction.

That's a really good one.

So how do parents? How would you suggest to me? I know you're a mom, but younger, but the How do you suggest that the parents to just trust it, trust the process?