Despite the COVID-19 health crisis preventing the majority of hands-on career exploration activities in schools last year, it is now more important than ever for the construction industry to ramp up virtual boots on the ground outreach efforts to effectively and safely provide students with comprehensive construction career awareness opportunities. The good news for our Carolinas AGC member employers is that through the CAGC Foundation’s Build Your Career workforce development initiative, our member firms can now engage in a variety of construction education outreach activities to connect with students in two major ways: by participating as BYC Ambassadors or by participating in live or virtual construction career awareness events as part of our Contractors in the Classroom program.

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, schools in all fifty states were forced to close for the majority of the 2020 school year to protect the safety and well-being of students.  Carolinas region educators had to quickly establish and implement viable remote learning platforms for students.  Build Your Career also promptly pivoted our programmatic approach to facilitate and support virtual, remote outreach.  Our existing Ambassador program resources were converted to a user-friendly, electronic format and a robust construction education video was also produced that allows our Ambassadors to continue their BYC outreach efforts in a safer, socially distanced and remote manner—aligning with new COVID safety regulations.

The BYC construction education video is a dynamic new tool available to our BYC Ambassadors and CAGC members to assist them with virtual construction career awareness outreach.  This educational video is a comprehensive and informative digital snapshot of our industry that provides students of all ages essential information about the limitless career opportunities that await them in the field of construction.  Video topics range from describing the different divisions of construction; the roles of various workers on a project; earning potential and career pathways; to providing an overview of the building process from start -to-finish.

The full-length video is split into five chapter segments that can be used during virtual school visits, allowing our Ambassadors to interweave live-streaming feeds in between each section to share their industry expertise with students, conduct equipment demos, show students the building process in action, have Q & A sessions and much more.  Or, if an Ambassador's school of choice is allowing live visitors, the breaks in between video segments provide Ambassadors with an opportunity to conduct portions of their company-specific presentations or hands-on project-based learning activities with students during the breaks. This ultimately creates a unique, customizable platform for our members to interactively showcase their companies, share their own unique career pathway information and offer available employment opportunities to students—all right from their jobsites or offices!

By developing a “Construction 101” educational video and incorporating live-streaming options to host our Ambassadors in schools and classrooms virtually, our BYC volunteers are able to continue promoting construction career awareness to students in a safer, more high-tech manner which also complies with new school health and safety regulations.   The existing BYC Ambassador toolkits were also updated to include a vast array of customizable electronic resources such as: a virtual school visit guide, career ladder templates, editable registration and time tracking forms, virtual teacher externship templates and much more.

Through participating with the CAGC Build Your Career program and by using the new e-resources and educational video, our member companies can now engage with students throughout the Carolinas either in-person or virtually. These robust resources will effectively equip our Ambassadors with the tools they need to successfully promote construction career awareness to next gen workers at any grade level.

Do you or your employees have plans to conduct construction education outreach in 2021? Would you like your construction company’s outreach efforts showcased by BYC? Does your company want to promote construction careers to next generation workers but lack resources or maybe you’re just not sure where to start? If you answered YES to any of these questions, then we encourage and invite you to become a BYC Ambassador and partner with Build Your Career so we can provide you with all the support, resources, educator contact information and advertising platforms to help you! 

Here are a few easy steps to help you get started:

• Register your company as a BYC Ambassador

• Nominate several of your company employees to serve as BYC Field Ambassadors

• Choose your school(s) and use our e-resources and video to conduct virtual or live outreach (*the video segments are available on the home page of the BYC site)
  

• Sign up to receive the BYC newsletter and download the BYC mobile app (our new app is coming soon!)

• Communicate your plans to BYC and let us help you coordinate, promote & showcase your school visits

The CAGC Foundation’s Build Your Career workforce development initiative is committed to putting an end to the construction labor shortage crisis. Through numerous BYC programs, our Ambassador outreach efforts, our virtual toolkit resources and the new construction education video, Carolinas AGC continues to build the next generation of construction professionals and a skilled labor pool—ultimately ensuring the growth and sustainability of our industry for many years to come!

For more information on the CAGC Foundation’s Build Your Career workforce development initiative or to volunteer to be a BYC Ambassador, please visit our website or contact Program Director, Tammy Ford, via email at tford@carolinasagc.org or by phone at (704) 995-3901. To make a charitable contribution to Build Your Career, please visit our secure online donation portal.