I Love Career Day

One of the ways I’d like to think I make an impact is being involved in my kids’ lives, and kids’ lives in general.

I’m happy to volunteer my time for school functions and events for both my high school, and college alma maters.

In fact, it’s highly valuable to me. It’s the ability to talk to and learn from younger generations.

So I was pretty excited to learn from 1st-8th graders about how they perceive my career as a podcaster, YouTuber, and online business owner.

Oh, and I brought a green screen (shout out to eCamm Live for making this super easy):

I had SO much fun interacting with the kids, seeing their interests, and watching them freak out when they actually stood in front of the green screen.

I also got to observe how they interacted with other professions. My wife Erin is a nurse, and her booth was right next to mine.

General Observations

My general observations (and the one in-depth one):

1. The kids had a lot of fun taking photos at my booth, and seeing how the green screen worked. However, they didn’t ask many questions about what I did. The vast majority of them moved on after they took their photo.
2. Conversely, the kids stuck around Erin’s booth for much longer, listening to each other’s heartbeats, taking blood pressure, and asking specific questions. She had much more tangible examples of her work, in my opinion¹.
3. The kids are definitely more content consumers than hopeful creators. While some were interested (see next point), many expressed excitement in just meeting someone who makes videos on YouTube.
4. Far and away the most common question I got was around editing. The kids seemed to grasp that recording is easy, but also knew that good videos were edited. This fact was a little surprising to me.
5. Several students asked me how many subscribers I had. I sheepishly answered, “around 3,000,” assuming they’d compare me to Mr. Beast (or some other contemporary YouTuber). To my surprise, they thought that was impressive — some of them even shared their subscriber numbers.
6. Way more students under 6th grade listen to podcasts that I expected. Part of the reason I included “YouTuber” was because I thought they’d be much more familiar with that. But several students talked about listening to podcasts with both Spotify and YouTube.

Is Being a YouTube or Influencer a Hard Career to Visualize?

I’ll start at the outset by saying I had fun and this was a great experience for me — and I know the kids had fun too. I understand as we get to the other kids, I’m fighting the preteen apathy too.

That said, I don’t think I did a good job of talking about being a creator as a profession — partially because it’s not my main gig. I picked Creator over Coach because I thought this would be easier for kids to understand.

But what I found was the majority of students — while we had a TON of fun at my booth — didn’t linger because they didn’t know what to ask, I didn’t know how to elicit questions from them.

They liked consuming content, but most of them didn’t see it as a profession.

Compare that to Erin’s booth, or some other folks there (Pharmacist, Police Officers, Real Estate), and they stayed around longer.

My initial thought was they see these professionals in their everyday life, so it’s easy to understand and wonder how those jobs work.

But even as I write that, I know it’s not true. Basically, all the kids who came up to my booth watched YouTube. They get it.

What they might not get is the path to becoming this vs. traditional professions.

It was a Bigger Learning Experience for Me Than Them

Don’t get me wrong. The kids who were interested were genuinely interested. They loved seeing pictures of my studio, testing out my DJI Mic, and getting a behind-the-scenes look at some movie magic.

But as the day wore on, I felt a bit like a pitcher who could only throw a fastball really fast. Eventually, a hitter will catch up to that, and you’ll need something else in your arsenal.

The green screen was great at first — but next time I’d like to be prepared with something a little more substantive.

I missed the opportunity to tell them how they could do what I do, and why they might want to…not just wait for them to ask me questions about it.

It was my first career day for Grades 1-8, and I wasn’t sure what to expect.

I also know it wasn’t my job to Stand and Deliver at a career day mostly for kids 10 and under. The younger grades had fun, and that’s what they’ll remember.

But in the interest of constant improvement, here’s what I’m thinking for next time:

1. I’ll talk about what I primarily do (Coach, Podcaster) and how the flashy stuff helps me, instead of making the flashy stuff front and center.
2. I’m going to have more collateral, like a board, with pictures of my studio, podcasters and others that I’ve helped, and screenshots of videos. Maybe have actual editing software up on my computer (or a looping video of me editing something).
3. I’ll have more of a canned speech for students who come over, and then ask them questions about their everyday lives — then how my profession relates to them.

I want to reiterate that I had a lot of fun, and I think the kids did too. This was a very positive experience for all of us.

But I’m always looking to do better.

1. She probably wouldn’t admit this, but she’s also a great teacher. ?