Teaching CTE Students How to Navigate the Job Market

According to the World Economic Forum‘s Future of Jobs Report 2025, analytic thinking is the skill that employers look for in the people they hire. The other top skills named include resilience, flexibility, leadership, and social influence. 

Teaching at a career technical education (CTE) high school, I am always trying to find ways to integrate practical skills so that students gain real-world experience. Here’s how I designed an assignment to help students have an opportunity to practice navigating the job market.

designing a job-market project

I had students analyze a current job description for entry-level positions at elementary schools in the area. I pulled the résumé from Indeed after also searching LinkedIn and Monster.

I wanted students to see a variety of effective educators with various backgrounds. By using Canva’s résumé templates, I was able to create several quality mock candidates with various levels of experiences, skills, and education. One résumé included a gap in employment so that students would discuss the perception of a leave. On another résumé, I included a candidate who had had a career change. Using AI tools like Gemini and Perplexity, I created cover letters for mock candidates that included their experience and information from their résumé.

Analysis of the job description: Our unit of study focused on characteristics of effective educators. I wanted my students to understand that effective educators don’t all look the same and could have potentially different pathways. This led to creating a lesson on navigating the hiring process.

When students are given a real job description, they gain a glimpse into their future of job searching. Teaching students how to extract information from the ad and tailor cover letters to the job allows them to better understand the jobs they are applying for. It also helps them to anticipate questions that might be asked during the interview process and to make sure the job is the right fit.

I had students analyze a current job description for entry-level positions at elementary schools in the area that I found on Indeed. For homework, they made note of the characteristics needed, level of education preferred, and potential skills that candidates would need. As students analyzed the job description, they drafted potential interview questions. This step led students to think critically about what the school was hiring for, as well as come up with potential answers for the questions. Some of their questions focused on the candidate providing specific examples of the skills that the job posting listed. The students were also surprised when they realized the job posting focused on experience over education. Students identified skills like collaboration, flexibility, innovation, and adaptability.

When students returned to class, they discussed the job description and created three bullet points as a group to summarize the most important aspects of the job description. They also shared their potential interview questions, highlighting the most pertinent ones that would lead to the best candidate for the school.

Group analysis of résumés: I split my students into four groups and gave each group a candidate. Their job was to pick out the strengths and weaknesses of their candidate; their goal was to be an expert on that candidate and be prepared to sell their candidate to the hiring committee. Students made a list on a shared document and made counterarguments to the weaknesses. They were excited to become fierce advocates of their candidates. They used the potential interview questions to address concerns about the flaws in the résumés.

Hiring the right candidate: Students then transitioned into a group with students who had a different candidate. The group was tasked with hiring the best candidate for the job. In their initial discussion, students created a protocol to share their candidate and make a decision. Students spent time asking each other questions, defending their candidate, exploring the résumés, and making connections between the job description and the best candidate. The discussions had students practice their leadership skills and advocate for themselves, demonstrating resilience in admitting that maybe their candidate wasn’t the best for the job.

Reflection: By the end of the discussion, students had developed their analytic skills, leadership, and social influence. Students were going back to the job posting and citing evidence, actively involving the group members with follow-up questions, and yielding to another candidate if they felt convinced by others. They successfully avoided being pressured by their friend to just pick their candidate. For teenagers, giving in to social pressures or what others are thinking is a challenge; this activity gives students a chance to practice using their voice. It also allows students to develop empathy and think differently about what makes someone effective.

As a class, students discussed their takeaways. Some noted that they were surprised about the connection between other careers and teaching. Other students recognized how important it is to carefully read the job description to make sure a place of employment is the right fit.

Extensions: There are other ways this project could be extended as part of a career unit. You could bring in a guest speaker. This could be a person from human resources to discuss the hiring process, a manager who does interviewing, or even a person currently seeking a job. Students could also create their own résumés and practice interviewing each other.

Equipping students with the skills to navigate a changing job market and focusing on scaffolding 21st-century skills will better prepare students for interviews—and to get hired—when they start their careers.