Career coaches help Shelby students find opportunities

LaJuana Hamer describes herself as a “chameleon.” Whatever the schools need from her on any given day, that’s what she’s going to do.

Hamer is one of two career coaches for Shelby County Schools, serving the middle and high schools at Oak Mountain Chelsea, Vincent and Montevallo. She has been in the role for almost three years, after retiring from a 25-year career as a teacher and counselor from elementary to high school in Tennessee.

“Even though it’s different from what a school counselor does, a lot of the skills I used I can apply,” Hamer said.

Being a career coach means Hamer and her counterpart, former South Shelby County Chamber acting director Keyla Handley, provide a wide variety of services for students, typically from eighth grade to seniors in college. Hamer said much of her time is spent meeting with students and making connections in the local business community, so she can bring speakers to school events and provide job-shadowing opportunities in different fields for students who are trying to decide their career path.

Hamer said she also does presentations on careers and “soft” job skills, assists with resume writing, offers FAFSA financial aid application workshops, hosts mock job interviews, helps with college or scholarship applications, provides career assessment tests and anything else that might help students figure out their next step in life.

She recently took a group of girls to the McWane Science Center for an introduction to engineering careers, and Hamer said she’s trying new methods to show girls that they can succeed in nontraditional fields. One such method is the girls construction camp that Hamer has planned for this summer, for girls in grades 8-10.

She is also working on the idea of a job shadow day, where a large number of students could participate in shadowing opportunities with less disruption to their regular classroom work.

Having a student shadow a professional in their desired career can be a valuable experience, Hamer said. It may confirm that they’ve found their dream career, or it may make the student realize it’s not a good fit. Either way, she said, “it’s a win-win” because it helps the student find direction.

Some students Hamer encounters have a clear idea of their intended career path, while others have a vague idea but need help getting more specific based on their skills and areas of strength. Part of her job, Hamer said, is advising students when their career aspirations might not make sense. For instance, a student who doesn’t have the math and science grades to become a doctor might be able to find another role in the medical field.

“I don’t try to change them, I just try to help them work through and talk through how they plan to reach that goal,” she said.

Hamer said she can recall one Oak Mountain student who did not plan to go to college but wasn’t sure of what fields interested him. After meeting with him, Hamer set him up with a job shadowing opportunity at an electrical company. He loved the work, she said, and the company hired him after graduation and promoted him soon after that.

Those are the kinds of success stories Hamer wants to see for Shelby County’s graduating students.

She said she loves “getting kids to think about their future in a realistic way,” and it’s always interesting to hear the way teens think about their futures. She’s there to be a sounding board and ask the right questions.

“Sometimes hearing a different person’s point of view brings it home to them,” she said.