Employment Day: forty years of transitioning high school seniors into the workforce.

School counselors and career counselors have always viewed the transition of high school students into the workforce as a responsibility of high importance (American School Counselor Association [ASCA], 2003; Campbell & Dahir, 1997; Gibson & Mitchell, 2006; Myrick, 2003; Niles & Harris-Bowlsbey, 2005; Thompson, 2002). The teenager is on the verge of entering the adult world of work, and current decision making has an important impact on future career directions (Andersen & Vandehey, 2006). One third of the framework contained in the National Standards for School Counseling Programs of the American School Counselor Association (ASCA, 2000) consists of career development. State-level comprehensive developmental counseling program models should contain significant emphasis on the preparation of high school students for post-high school decision making. (Gysbers & Henderson, 2002). The New York State Comprehensive Model (New York State School Counselor Association, 2004), for example, follows the ASCA (2003) National Model closely and also folds into New York State's learning standards, especially the career development and occupational studies standards.

Embedded in this focus on career development is the structure to accommodate both "college-bound" and "work-bound" (Herr, 1995, p. 25) students. Anecdotally, school counselors have long since been accused of spending disproportionate amounts of time on the former students, to the detriment of the latter. Ideally, school counselors provide extensive career information opportunities for all students to learn what they need to know as they transition from high school. As Powell and Luzzo (1998) have noted, "counselors might want to consider the integration of career exploration and planning activities into courses required of all students for graduation" (p. 156). In a more strongly worded admonition, Mau, Hitchcock, and Calvert (1998) asserted, "Students who choose vocational tracks over college preparatory tracks should be assured that they are not inferior to college-bound students, and counselors should devote equivalent time and resources to college-bound and work-bound students" (p. 164).

The purpose of this article is to describe Employment Day, an annual career development event organized by a committee of the Western Suffolk Counselors' Association (WSCA), located in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York. This is a unique career development activity whose sole purpose has been to help graduating work-bound seniors to enter the workforce. Employment Day is in no sense a career fair, at which practitioners describe or explain their work to an audience, and it is much more than a job fair, at which random job seekers vie to be hired. Employment Day's uniqueness consists, first, in the careful preidentification of the student attendees; next, in the attention given to their preparation, from resume writing to interview techniques; then, in detailed coaching about their dress, appearance, and attitude; and, finally, in their familiarization with the employers whom they are to meet. Employment Day is a culminating career development experience for these seniors, leading to their gaining full-time employment upon, or shortly after, graduation.

Employment Day has endured for nearly 40 years. It seemed timely to explain it to a larger audience, with the hope that other professional counseling associations would replicate it as a best practice.

Background

Employment Day was created in the mid-1960s. Guidance and counseling services were expanding rapidly, along with the entire educational establishment on Long Island, New York. Spurred by a strong economy and a surge in population growth from the inner cities to the suburbs, school buildings were being constructed apace, and the need for teachers and counselors soared.

High school counselors' tasks then, as today, centered on scheduling students for classes, grade level by grade level, and assisting students in post-high school planning--specifically admission to college. A significant proportion of students were considered college bound; however, many students at the time were called work bound, that is, planning to enter the workforce right after high school.