As young adults prepare to enter the workforce, many will realize that their activities on social media may hinder their professional aspirations and future goals. That’s why the team at Hi-Res Creative was on hand at the Discover Your Direction Youth Leadership Conference on February 13 in Corpus Christi to talk to area students about how behavior on social media can help or hinder their future plans.
Sponsored by the Education to Employment Partners (E2E) and the Education Service Center, Region 2, the all-day event was attended by students in grades 8, 9 and 10 from schools in the Corpus Christi area. Designed to encourage students to take control of their career trajectory as early as possible, the event is one of a number of community-wide initiatives by the E2E to help show students of all ages that education and empowerment are the keys to life-long success. Business leaders and educational professionals who led sessions on a range of topics including choosing a career path, workforce and job market information, leadership and military service, STEM careers, networking, entrepreneurship and how to be career ready.
Our own Communications Director, Marco Carbajal, led a session entitled “Social iDentity: You Are What You Post” in which students were encouraged to actively participate in forming quick perceptions of others based on images found online. The talk included topics including how snap judgments and online perceptions can negatively affect a person, what employers are really looking for, how an individual’s behavior is a reflection of their employer both on and off the clock and how simple filtering and dealing with emotions in a healthy way can help avoid posting something that may result in negative consequences.
After the day’s sessions, students shared with facilitators new things they had discovered about themselves and their future plans. In addition to walking away with an abundance of new information regarding their future prospects, students completed a survey regarding the conference and were entered into a raffle drawing with several prizes given out at the end of the day.
